PA 

3(*  Ob 


014011  L\BR  W 

BOSTON  COLLEGE 


THE  COMMENTARIES 


OF 


1 


BY 

ANTHONY  xROLLOPE. 


jtfEW  YORK 

JOHN  B.  ALDEN,  PUBLISHER 

1883 


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CHAP. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE. 


I.  Introduction .  1 

II.  First  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — Caesar  Drives 
First  the  Swiss  and  then  the  Germans  out 
of  Gaul.— B.  C.  58 .  26 

III.  Second  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — Caesar  Sub¬ 

dues  the  Belgian  Tribes. — B.  C.  57 .  42 

IV.  Third  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — Caesar  Sub¬ 

dues  the  Western  Tribes  of  Gaul.— B.  C.  56. . .  50 


V.  Fourth  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — Caesar 
Crosses  the  Rhine,  Slaughters  the  Germans, 
and  Goes  Into  Britain. — B.  C .  55 .  58 

VI.  Fifth  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — Caesar’s  Second 
Invasion  of  Britain. — The  Gauls  Rise  Against 
Him. — B.  C.  54 .  68 

VII.  Sixth  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — Caesar  Pursues 
Ambiorix. — The  Manners  of  the  Gauls  and  of 
the  Germans  are  Contrasted. — B.  C.  53 .  81 

VIII.  Seventh  Book  of  the  War  in  Gaul. — The  Revolt 

of  Verciugetorix. — B.  C.  52 .  92 

IX.  First  Book  of  the  Civil  War. — Caesar  Crosses  the 
Rubicon. — Follows  Pompey  to  Brundusium. 

— And  Conquers  Afranius  in  Spain. — B.  C.  49.  107 

X.  Second  Book  of  the  Civil  War. — The  Taking  of 
Marseilles. — Yarro  in  the  South  of  Spain. — 

The  Fate  of  Curio  Before  Utica. — B.  C.  49.  122 

XI.  Third  Book  of  the  Civil  War. — Caesar  Follows 
Pompey  into  Illyria. — The  Lines  of  Petra  and 

the  Battle  of  Pharsalia. — B.  C.  48 .  136 

XII.  Conclusion . . . .  162 


CAESAR. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

It  may  perhaps  be  fairly  said  that  the  Commentaries 
of  Caesar  are  the  beginning  of  modern  history.  He 
wrote,  indeed,  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago;  but  he 
wrote,  not  of  times  then  long  past,  but  of  things  which 
were  done  under  his  own  eyes,  and  of  his  own  deeds. 
And  he  wrote  of  countries  with  which  we  are  familiar, 
— of  our  Britain,  for  instance,  which  he  twice  invaded, 
of  peoples  not  so  far  remote  but  that  we  can  identify 
them  with  our  neighbors  and  ourselves;  and  he  so 
wrote  as  to  make  us  feel  that  we  are  reading  actual 
history,  and  not  romance.  The  simplicity  of  the  nar¬ 
ratives  which  he  has  left  is  their  chief  characteristic, 
if  not  their  greatest  charm.  We  feel  sure  that  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  which  he  tells  did  occur,  and  that  they 
occurred  very  nearly  as  he  tells  them.  He  deals  with 
those  great  movements  in  Europe  from  which  have 
sprung,  and  to  which  we  can  trace,  the  present  politi¬ 
cal  condition  of  the  nations.  Interested  as  the  scholar,  • 
or  the  reader  of  general  literature,  may  be  in  the  great 
deeds  of  the  heroes  of  Greece,  and  in  the  burning  words 
of  Greek  orators,  it  is  almost  impossible  for  him  to 
connect  by  any  intimate  and  thoroughly-trusted  link 


2 


CAESAR. 


the  fortunes  of  Athens,  or  Sparta,  or  Macedonia,  witl\ 
our  own  times  and  our  own  position.  It  is  almost 
equally  difficult  to  do  so  in  regard  to  the  events  of 
Rome  and  the  Roman  power  before  the  time  of  Caesar. 
We  cannot  realize  and  bring  home  to  ourselves  the 
Punic  Wars  or  the  Social  War,  the  Scipios  and  the 
Gracchi,  or  even  the  contest  for  power  between  Marius 
and  Sulla,  as  we  do  the  Gallic  Wars  and  the  invasion 
of  Britain,  by  which  the  civilization  of  Rome  was  first 
carried  westwards,  or  the  great  civil  wars, — the  “  Bel- 
lum  Civile,” — by  which  was  commenced  a  line  of  em¬ 
perors  continued  almost  down  to  our  own  days,  and  to 
which  in  some  degree  may  be  traced  the  origin  and 
formation  of  almost  every  existing  European  nation. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  if  we  did  but  know  the  facts 
correctly,  we  could  refer  back  every  political  and  social 
condition  of  the  present  day  to  the  remotest  period  of 
man’s  existence;  but  the  interest  fails  us  when  the 
facts  become  doubtful,  and  when  the  mind  begins  to  fear 
that  history  is  mixed  with  romance.  Herodotus  is  so 
mythic  that  what  delight  we  have  in  his  writings  conus 
in  a  very  slight  degree  from  any  desire  on  our  part  to 
form  a  continuous  chain  from  the  days  of  which  he 
wrote  down  to  our  own.  Between  the  marvels  of  He¬ 
rodotus  and  the  facts  of  Caesar  there  is  a  great  interval, 
from  which  have  come  down  to  us  the  works  of  various 
noble  historians;  but  with  Caesar  it  seems  that  that 
certainty  commences  which  we  would  wish  to  regard  as 
the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  modern  history. 

It  must  be  remembered  from  the  beginning  that 
Caesar  wrote  only  of  what  he  did  or  of  what  he  caused 
to  be  done  himself.  At  least  he  only  so  wrote  in  the 
two  works  of  his  which  remain  to  us.  We  are  told 
that  he  produced  much  besides  his  Commentaries, — ■ 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


among  other  works,  a  poem, — but  the  two  Commen. 
taries  are  all  of  his  that  we  have  The  former,  in  seven 
books,  relates  the  facts  of  his  seven  first  campaigns  in 
Gaul  for  seven  consecntive  years;  those  campaigns  in 
which  he  reduced  the  nations  living  between  the  Rhine, 
the  Rhone,  the  Mediterranean,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the 
sea  which  we  now  call  the  British  Channel.*  The 
latter  Commentary  relates  the  circumstances  of  the 
civil  warm  which  he  contended  for  power  against  Pom- 
pey,  his  former  colleague,  with  Crassus,  in  the  first 
triumvirate,  and  established  that  empire  to  which 
Augustus  succeeded  after  a  second  short-lived  trium¬ 
virate  between  himself  and  Lepidus  and  Antony. 

It  is  the  object  of  this  little  volume  to  describe 
Caesar’s  Commentaries  for  the  aid  of  those  who  do 
not  read  Latin,  and  not  to  write  Roman  history; 
but  it  may  be  well  to  say  something,  in  a  few  intro¬ 
ductory  lines,  of  the  life  and  character  of  our  authors 
We  are  all  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  name  of 
Julius  Csesar.  In  our  early  days  we  learned  that  he 
was  the  first  of  those  twelve  Roman  emperors  with 
whose  names  it  was  thought  right  to  burden  our 
young  memories;  and  we  were  taught  to  understand 
that  when  he  began  to  reign  there  ceased  to  exist  that 
form  of  republican  government  in  which  two  consuls 
elected  annually  did  in  truth  preside  over  the  fortunes 
of  the  empire.  There  had  first  been  seven  kings, — 
whose  names  have  also  been  made  familiar  to  us, — then 
the  consuls,  and  after  them  the  twelve  Caesars,  of 
whom  the  great  Julius  was  the  first.  So  much  we 
all  know  of  him;  and  we  know,  too,  that  he  was  killed 


*  There  is  an  eighth  book,  referring  to  an  eighth  and  ninth 
campaign,  but  it  is  not  the  work  of  Csesar. 


4 


CJESAR. 


in  tlie  Capitol  by  conspirators  just  as  be  was  going  to 
become  emperor,  although  this  latter  scrap  of  knowl¬ 
edge  seems  to  bexparadoxically  at  variance  with  the 
former.  In  addition  to  this  we  know  that  he  was  a 
great  commander  and  conqueror  and  writer,  who  did 
things  and  wrote  of  them  in  the  “  veni,  vidi,  vici  ” 
style — saying  of  himself,  “I  came,  I  saw,  I  con¬ 
quered.”  We  know  that  a  great  Roman  army  was 
intrusted  to  him,  and  that  he  used  this  army  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  his  own  power  in  Rome  by 
taking  a  portion  of  it  over  the  Rubicon,  which  little 
river  separated  the  province  which  he  had  been  ap¬ 
pointed  to  govern  from  the  actual  Roman  territory 
within  ’which,  as  a  military  servant  of  the  magistrates 
of  the  republic,  lie  had  no  business  to  appear  as  a 
general  at  the  head  of  his  army.  So  much  we  know ; 
and  in  the  following  very  short  memoir  of  the  great 
commander  and  historian,  no  effort  shall  be  made, — as 
has  been  so  frequently  and  so  painfully  done  for  us  in 
late  years, — to  upset  the  teachings  of  our  youth,  and  to 
prove  that  the  old  lessons  were  wrong.  They  were 
all  fairly  accurate,  and  shall  now  only  be  supplemented 
by  a  few  further  circumstances  which  were  doubtless 
once  learned  by  all  school-boys  and  school  girls,  but 
which  some  may  perhaps  have  forgotten  since  those 
happy  days. 

Dean  Merivale,  in  one  of  the  early  chapters  of  his 
admirable  history  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire, 
declares  that  Caius  Julius  Caesar  is  the  greatest  name 
in  history.  He  makes  the  claim  without  reserve,  and 
attaches  to  it  no  restriction,  or  suggestion  that  such  is 
simply  his  own  opinion.  Claims  of  this  nature,  made 
by  writers  on  behalf  of  their  pet-lieroes,  we  are,  all  of 
us,  generally  inclined  to  dispute,  but  this  claim,  great 


INTRODUCTION . 


5 


as  it  is,  can  hardly  be  disputed.  Dr.  Merivale  does  not 
say  that  Caesar  was  the  greatest  man  that  ever  lived. 
In  measuring  such  supremacy,  men  take  for  themselves 
various  standards.  To  satisfy  the  judgment  of  one,  it 
is  necessary  that  a  poet  should  he  selected;  for  another, 
a  teacher  of  religion ;  for  a  third,  some  intellectual  hero 
who  has  assisted  in  discovering  the  secrets  of  nature 
by  the  operations  of  his  own  brain;  for  a  fourth,  a 
ruler, — and  so  on.  But  the  names  of  some  of  these 
cannot  be  said  to  be  great  in  history.  Homer,  Luther, 
Galileo,  and  Charles  Y. ,  are  great  names, — as  are  also 
Shakespeare,  Knox,  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  Newton. 
Among  these,  the  two  rulers  would  probably  be  the 
least  in  general  admiration.  But  no  one  can  assert  that 
the  names  of  the  poets,  divines,  and  philosophers,  are 
greater  than  theirs  in  history.  The  Dean  means  that 
of  all  men  who  have  lived,  and  whose  deeds  are  known 
to  us,  Julius  Caesar  did  most  to  move  the  world;  and 
we  think  that  the  Dean  is  right.  Those  whom  we 
might,  perhaps,  compare  with  Caesar,  are  Alexander, 
Charlemagne,  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  and  Washington. 
In  regard  to  the  first  two,  we  feel,  when  claims  are 
made  for  them,  that  they  are  grounded  on  the  perform¬ 
ance  of  deeds  only  partially  known  to  us.  In  the  days 
of  Alexander,  history  was  still  dark, — and  it  had  be¬ 
come  dark  again  in  those  of  Charlemagne.  What  Crom¬ 
well  did  was  confined  to  our  own  islands,  and,  though 
lie  was  great  for  us,  he  does  not  loom  as  large  before 
the  eyes  of  mankind  in  general  as  does  one  who  moved 
ail  Europe,  present  and  future.  If  there  be  any  fair 
antagonist  to  Caesar  in  this  claim,  it  is  Napoleon.  As 
a  soldier  he  was  equally  great,  and  the  area  of  his 
operations  was  as  extended.  But  there  is  an  old  say¬ 
ing  which  tells  us  that  no  one  can  be  sure  of  his 


6 


GAEJSAB. 


fortune  till  tlie  end  shall  have  come;  and  Caesar’s 
death  on  the  steps  of  the  Capitol  was  more  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  our  ideas  of  greatness  than  that  of  Napo¬ 
leon  at  St.  Helena.  We  cannot,  moreover,  hut  feel 
there  were  fewer  drawbacks  from  greatness  in  the 
personal  demeanor  of  the  Roman  “Imperator”  and 
Dictator  than  in  that  of  the  French  Emperor.  For 
Julius  Caesar  was  never  really  emperor,  in  that  sense  in 
which  we  use  the  word,  and  in  accordance  with  which 
his  successor  Augustus  really  became  an  emperor.  As 
to  Washington,  we  may  perhaps  allow  that  in  moral 
attributes  lie  was  the  greatest  of  all.  To  aid  his 
country  he  dared  all, — even  a  rebel’s  disgraceful  death, 
had  he  not  succeeded  where  success  was  most  improba¬ 
ble;  and  in  all  that  he  attempted  he  succeeded.  His 
is  the  name  that  culminates  among  those  of  the  men 
who  made  the  United  States  a  nation,  and  does  so  by 
the  eager  consent  of  all  its  people.  And  his  work 
came  altogether  from  patriotism, — with  no  alloy  of 
personal  ambition.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  the 
things  he  did  were  as  great  as  those  which  were  done 
by  Caesar,  or  that  he  himself  was  as  potent  in  the 
doing  of  them.  He  ventured  everything  with  as  grand 
a  purpose  as  ever  warmed  the  heart  of  man,  and  he 
was  successful;  but  the  things  which  he  did  were  in 
themselves  small  in  comparison  with  those  effected  by 
his  less  noble  rival  for  fame.  Mommsen,  the  German 
historian,  describes  Caesar  as  a  man  too  great  for  the 
scope  of  his  intelligence  and  power  of  delineation. 
“The  historian,”  he  says,  speaking  of  Caesar,  “when 
once  in  a  thousand  years  he  encounters  the  perfect, 
can  only  be  silent  regarding  it.”  Napoleon  also,  in  his 
life  of  Caesar,  paints  his  hero  as  perfect;  but  Napoleon 
when  doing  so  is,  in  fact,  claiming  godlike  perfection 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


for  that  second  Caesar,  liis  uncle.  And  the  perfection 
which  he  claims  is  not  that  of  which  Mommsen 
Speaks.  The  German  intends  to  convey  to  us  his 
conviction  that  Caesar  was  perfect  in  human  capacity 
and  intelligence.  Napoleon  claims  for  him  moral  per¬ 
fection.  “We  may  be  convinced,”  says  the  Emperor, 
“by  the  above  facts,  that  during  his  first  consulate, 
one  only  motive  animated  Caesar, — namely,  the  public 
interest.”  We  cannot,  however,  quite  take  the  facts 
as  the  Emperor  of  the  French  gives  them  to  us,  nor 
can  we  share  his  conviction;  but  the  common  consent 
of  reading  men  will  probably  acknowledge  that  there  is 
in  history  no  name  so  great  as  that  of  Julius  Caesar, — 
of  whose  written  works  some  account  is  intended  to  be 
given  in  the  following  chapters. 

He  was  born  just  one  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
and  came  of  an  old  noble  Roman  family,  of  which  Ju¬ 
lius  and  not  Caesar  was  the  distinctive  name.  Whence 
came  the  name  of  Caesar  has  been  a  matter  of  doubt 
and  of  legend.  Some  say  that  it  arose  from  the  thick 
hair  of  one  of  the  Julian  tribe;  others  that  a  certain 
scion  of  the  family,  like  Macduff,  ‘  ‘  was  from  his  moth¬ 
er’s  womb  untimely  ripped,”  for  which  derivations 
Latin  words  are  found  to  be  opportune.  Again  we  are 
told  that  one  of  the  family  once  kept  an  elephant, — and 
we  are  referred  to  some  eastern  language  in  which  the 
word  for  elephant  has  a  sound  like  Caesar.  Another 
legend  also  rose  from  Caesar’s  name,  which,  in  the  Gal¬ 
lic  language  of  those  days, — very  luckily  for  Caesar, — 
sounded  as  though  one  should  say,  “  Send  him  back.” 
Caesar’s  horse  once  ran  away  with  him,  and  carried  him 
over  to  the  enemy.  An  insolent  Gaul,  who  knew  him, 
called  out,  “Caesar,  Caesarl”and  so  the  other  Gauls, 
obeying  the  order  supposed  to  be  given,  allowed  the 


8 


(3JE8AU. 


illustrious  one  to  escape.  It  must  be  acknowledged, 
however,  that  the  learned  German  who  tells  us  this 
story  expresses  a  contemptuous  conviction  that  it  can¬ 
not  be  true.  Whatever  may  have  produced  the  word, 
its  significance,  derived  from  the  doings  and  writings 
of  Cains  Julius,  has  been  very  great.  It  has  come  to 
mean  in  various  languages  the  holder  of  despotic  power; 
and  though  it  is  said  that,  as  a  fact,  the  Russian  title 
Czar  has  no  connection, with  the  Roman  word,  so  great 
is  the  prestige  of  the  name,  that  in  the  minds  of  men 
the  popular  appelation  of  the  Russian  Emperor  will 
always  be  connected  with  that  of  the  line  of  the  Roman 
Emperor. 

Caesar  was  the  nephew  by  marriage  of  that  Marius 
who,  with  alternations  of  bloody  successes  and  seem¬ 
ingly  irreparable  ruin,  had  carried  on  a  contest  with 
Sulla  for  supreme  power  in  the  republic.  Sulla  in 
these  struggles  had  represented  the  aristocrats  and  pat¬ 
ricians, — what  we  perhaps  may  call  the  Conservative 
interest;  while  Marius,  whose  origin  was  low,  who  had 
been  a  common  soldier,  and,  rising  from  the  ranks,  had 
become  the  darling  of  the  army  and  of  the  people,  may 
perhaps  be  regarded  as  one  who  would  have  called  him¬ 
self  a  Liberal,  had  any  such  term  been  known  in  those 
days.  His  liberality, — as  has  been  the  case  with  other 
political  leaders  since  his  time, — led  him  to  personal 
power.  He  was  seven  times  Consul,  having  secured  his 
seventh  election  by  atrocious  barbarities  and  butcher- 
ings  of  his  enemies  in  the  city;  and  during  this  last  con¬ 
sulship  he  died.  The  young  Ceesar,  though  a  patrician 
by  birth,  succeeded  his  uncle  in  the  popular  party,  and 
seems  from  a  very  early  age, — from  his  very  boyhood, — 
to  have  looked  forward  to  the  power  which  he  might 
win  by  playing  his  cards  with  discretion. 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


And  very  discreet  lie  was, — self-confident  to  a  won¬ 
derful  degree,  and  patient  also.  It  is  to  be  presumed 
that  most  of  our  readers  know  liow  the  Roman  Repub¬ 
lic  fell,  and  the  Roman  Empire  became  established  as 
the  result  of  the  civil  wars  which  began  with  Marius 
and  ended  with  that  “  young  Octavius  ”  whom  we  better 
recognize  as  Augustus  Caesar.  Julius  Caesar  was  the 
nephew  by  marriage  of  Marius,  and  Augustus  was  the 
great-nephew  and  heir  of  Julius.  By  means  of  con¬ 
scriptions  and  murders,  worse  in  their  nature,  though 
less  probably  in  number,  than  those  which  disgraced 
the  French  Revolution,  the  power  which  Marius 
achieved  almost  without  foresight,  for  which  the  great 
Caesar  strove  from  his  youth  upwards  with  constant 
f  oresight,  was  confirmed  in  the  hands  of  Augustus,  and 
bequeathed  by  him  to  the  emperors.  In  looking  back 
at  the  annals  of  the  world,  we  shall  generally  find  that 
despotic  power  has  first  grown  out  of  popular  move¬ 
ment  against  authority.  It  was  so  with  our  own 
Cromwell,  has  twice  been  so  in  the  history  of  modern 
France,  and  certainly  was  so  in  the  formation  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  In  the  great  work  of  establishing 
that  empire,  it  was  the  mind  and  hand  and  courage  of 
Caesar  that  brought  about  the  result,  whether  it  was  for 
good  or  evil.  And  in  looking  at  the  lives  of  the  three 
men — Marius,  Ca3sar,  and  Augustus,  who  followed  each 
other,  and  all  worked  to  the  same  end,  the  destruction 
of  that  oligarchy  which  was  called  a  Republic  in  Rome — 
we  find  that  the  one  was  a  man,  while  the  others  were 
beasts  of  prey.  The  cruelties  of  Marius  as  an  old  man, 
and  of  Augustus  as  a  young  one,  were  so  astounding,  as, 
even  at  thi3  distance,  to  horrify  the  reader,  though  he 
remembers  that  Christianity  had  not  yet  softened  men’s 
hearts.  Marius,  the  old  man,  almost  swam  in  the 


10 


CJEJSAR. 


blood  of  bis  enemies,  as  also  did  liis  rival  Sulla;  but 
the  young  Octavius,  he  whom  the  gods  favored  so 
long  as  the  almost  divine*  Augustus,  cemented  his 
throne  with  the  blood  of  his  friends.  To  complete  the 
satisfaction  of  Lepidus  and  Antony,  his  comrades  in 
the  second  triumvirate,  he  did  not  scruple  to  add  to 
the  list  of  those  who  were  to  die,  the  names  of  the 
nearest  and  dearest  to  him.  Between  these  monsters 
of  cruelty — between  Marius  and  Sulla,  who  went  before 
him,  and  Octavius  and  Antony  who  followed  him — 
Caesar  has  become  famous  for  clemency.  And  yet  the 
hair  of  the  reader  almost  stands  on  end  with  horror  as 
Caesar  recounts  in  page  after  page  the  stories  of  cities 
burned  to  the  ground,  and  whole  communities  slaugh¬ 
tered  in  cold  blood.  Of  the  destruction  of  the  women 
and  children  of  an  entire  tribe,  Caesar  will  leaye  the 
unimpassioned  record  in  one  line.  But  this  at  least 
may  be  said  of  Caesar,  that  he  took  no  delight  in 
slaughter.  When  it  became  in  his  sight  expedient  that 
a  people  should  suffer,  so  that  others  might  learn  to 
yield  and  to  obey,  he  could  give  the  order  apparently 
without  an  effort.  And  we  hear  of  no  regrets,  or  of  any 
remorse  which  folio  wed  the  execution  of  it.  But  blood¬ 
shed  in  itself  was  not  sweet  to  him.  He  was  a  discreet, 
far-seeing  man,  and  could  do  without  a  scruple  what 
discretion  and  caution  demanded  of  him. 

And  it  may  be  said  of  Caesar  that  he  was  in  some 
sort  guided  in  his  life  by  sense  of  duty  and  love  of 
country;  as  it  may  also  be  said  of  his  great  contem¬ 
poraries,  Pompey  and  Cicero.  With  those  who  went 


*  Ccelo  tonantem  credidimus  Jovem 
Regnare ;  prsesens  Divus  liabebitur 
Augustus. 


INTROD  VCTION. 


11 


before  him,  Marius  and  Sulla,  as  also  with  those  who 
followed  him,  Antony  and  Augustus,  it  does  not  seem 
that  any  such  motives  actuated  them.  Love  of  power 
and  greed,  hatred  of  their  enemies  and  personal  ambi¬ 
tion,  a  feeling  that  they  were  urged  on  by  their  fates 
to  seek  for  high  place,  and  a  resolve  that  it  was  better 
to  kill  than  be  killed,  impelled  them  to  their  courses. 
These  feelings  were  strong,  too,  with  Cmsar,  as  they  are 
strong  to  this  day  with  statesmen  and  with  generals; 
but  mingled  with  them  in  Caesar’s  breast  there  was  a 
noble  idea,  that  he  would  be  true  to  the  greatness  of 
Home,  and  that  he  would  grasp  at  power  in  order  that 
the  Roman  Empire  might  be  well  governed.  Augustus, 
doubtless,  ruled  well;  and  to  Julius  Caesar  very  little 
scope  for  ruling  was  allowed  after  his  battling  was 
done;  but  to  Augustus  no  higher  praise  can  be 
assigned  than  that  he  had  the  intelligence  to  see  that 
the  temporary  wellbeing  of  the  citizens  of  Rome  was 
the  best  guarantee  for  his  own  security. 

Early  in  life  Caesar  lifted  himself  to  high  position, 
though  he  did  so  in  the  midst  of  dangers.  It  was  the 
wonder  of  those  around  him  that  Sulla  did  not  mur¬ 
der  him  when  he  was  young, — crush  him  while  he 
was  yet,  as  it  were,  in  his  shell;  but  Sulla  spared 
him,  and  he  rose  apace.  We  are  told  that  he  became 
priest  of  Jupiter  at  seventeen,  and  he  was  then  already 
a  married  man.  He  early  trained  himself  as  a  public 
orator,  and  amidst  every  danger  espoused  the  popular 
cause  in  Rome.  He  served  his  country  in  the  East, — in 
Bithynia,  probably, — escaping,  by  doing  so,  the  perils  of 
a  residence  in  the  city.  He  became  Quaestor  and  then 
HSdile,  assisted  by  all  the  Marian  party,  as  that  party 
would  assist  fthe  rising  man  whom  they  regarded  as 
their  future  leader.  He  attacked  and  was  attacked, 


12 


GJESAll 


and  was  “  indefatigable  in  harassing,  the  aristoc¬ 
racy,”  *  who  strove,  but  strove  in  vain,  to  crush 
him.  Though  young,  and  addicted  to  all  the 
pleasures  of  youth, — a  trifler,  as  Sulla  once  called 
him, — he  omitted  to  learn  nothing  that  was  neces¬ 
sary  for  him  to  know  as  a  chief  of  a  great  party 
and  a  leader  of  great  armies.  When  he  was  thirty- 
seven  he  wras  made  Pontifiex  Maximus,  the  official 
chief  of  the  priesthood  of  Rome,  the  office  greatest 
in  honor  of  any  in  the  city,  although  opposed  by 
the  whole  weight  of  the  aristocracy,  and  although 
Catulus  was  a  candidate,  who,  of  all  that  party,  was 
the  highest  not  only  in  renown  but  in  virtue.  He 
became  Praetor  the  next  year,  though  again  he  was 
opposed  by  all  the  influence  of  those  who  feared  him. 
And,  after  his  twelve  months  of  office,  he  assumed 
the  government  of  Spain, — the  province  alloted  to 
him  as  Propraetor,  in  accordance  with  the  usage  of  the 
Republic, — in  the  teeth  of  a  decree  of  ihe  Senate  order¬ 
ing  him  to  remain  in  Rome.  Here  he  gained  his  first 
great  military  success,  first  made  himself  known  to 
J  his  soldiery,  and  came  back  to  Rome  entitled  to  the 
honor  of  a  triumph. 

But  there  was  still  another  step  on  the  ladder  of  the 
State  before  he  could  assume  the  position  which  no 
doubt  he  already  saw  before  him.  He  must  be  Consul 
before  he  could  be  master  the  of  many  legions,  and  in 
order  that  he  might  sue  in  proper  form  for  the  consul¬ 
ship,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  abandon  his 
Triumph.  He  could  only  triumph  as  holding  the  office 
of  General  of  the  Republic’s  forces,  and  as  General  or 
Imperator  he  could  not  enter  the  city.  He  abandoned 

*  The  words  are  taken  from  Dean  Merivale’s  history. 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 


the  Triumph,  sued  for  his  office  in  the  common  fashion, 
and  enabled  the  citizens  to  sny  that  he  preferred  their 
service  to  his  personal  honors.  At  the  age  of  forty-one 
he  became  Consul.  It  was  during  the  struggle  for  the 
consulship  that  the  triumvirate  was  formed,  of  which 
subsequent  ages  have  heard  so  much,  and  of  which 
Romans  at  the  time  heard  probably  so  little.  Pompey, 
who  had  been  the  political  child  of  Sulla,  and  had 
been  the  hope  of  the  patricians  to  whom  he  belonged, 
had  returned  to  Rome  after  various  victories  which  he 
had  achieved  as  Proconsul  in  the  East,  had  triumphed, 
— and  had  ventured  to  recline  on  his  honors,  dis¬ 
banding  his  army  and  taking  to  himself  the  credit  of 
subsiding  into  privacy.  The  times  were  too  rough  for 
such  honest  duly,  and  Pompey  found  himself  for  a 
while  slighted  by  his  party.  Though  he  had  thought 
himself  able  to  abandon  power,  he  could  not  bear  the 
loss  of  it.  It  may  be  that  he  had  conceived  himself 
able  to  rule  the  city  by  his  influence  without  the  aid 
of  his  legions.  Caesar  tempted  him,  and  they  two  with 
Crassus,  who  was  wanted  for  his  wealth,  formed  the 
first  triumvirate.  By  such  pact  ameng  themselves 
they  were  to  rule  all  Rome  and  all  Rome’s  provinces; 
but  doubtless,  by  resolves  within  himself  of  which  no 
one  knew,  Caesar  intended  even  then  to  grasp  the  do¬ 
minion  of  the  whole  in  his  own  hands.  During  the 
years  that  followed, — the  years  in  which  Caesar  was  en¬ 
gaged  in  his  Gallic  wars, — Pompey  remained  at  Rome, 
not  indeed  as  Caesar's  friend — for  that  hollow  friend¬ 
ship  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  death  cf  Julia, 
Caesar’s  daughter,  whom  Pompey,  though  five  years 
Caesar’s  elder,  had  married — but  in  undecided  rivalship 
to  the  active  man  who  in  foreign  wars  was  preparing 
legions  by  which  to  win  the  Empire.  Afterwards, 


14 


CJEJSAR. 


when  Caesar,  as  we  shall  hear,  had  crossed  the  Rubicon, 
their  enmity  was  declared.  It  was  natural  that  they 
should  be  enemies.  In  middle  life,  Pompey,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  married  Caesar’s  daughter,  and  Caesar’s 
second  wife  had  been  a  Pompeia.*  But  when  they 
were  young,  and  each  was  anxious  to  attach  himself  to 
the  politics  of  his  own  party,  Pompey  had  married  the 
daughter-in-law  of  Sulla,  and  Caesar  had  married  the 
daughter  of  Cinna,  who  had  almost  been  joined  with 
Marius  in  leading  the  popular  party.  Such  having 
been  the  connection  they  had  made  in  their  early  lives,  it 
was  natural  that  Pompey  and  Caesar  should  be  enemies, 
and  that  the  union  of  those  two  with  auy  other  third 
in  a  triumvirate  should  be  but  a  hollow  compromise, 
plauned  and  carried  out  only  that  time  might  be  gained. 

Caesar  was  now  Consul,  and  from  his  consular  chair 
laughed  to  scorn  the  Senate  and  the  aristocratic  col¬ 
league  with  whom  he  was  joined, — Bibulus,  of  whom 
we  shall  again  hear  in  the  Commentary  on  the  civil 


*  She  was  that  wife  who  was  false  with  Clodius,  and  whom 
Caesar  divorced,  declaring  that  Caesar’s  wife  must  not  even  be 
suspected.  He  would  not  keep  the  false  wife;  neither  would 
he  at  that  moment  take  part  in  the  accusation  against  Clodius, 
who  was  of  his  party,  and  against  whom  such  accusation  backed 
by  Caesar  would  have  been  fatal.  The  intrusion  of  the  dema¬ 
gogue  into  Caesar’s  house  in  the  pursuit  of  Caesar’s  wife  dur¬ 
ing  the  mysteries  of  the  Bona  Dea  became  the  subject  of  a  trial 
in  Rome.  The  offence  was  terrible  and  was  notorious.  Clodius, 
who  was  hated  and  feared  by  the  patricians,  was  a  favorite 
with  the  popular  party.  The  offender  was  at  last  brought  to 
trial,  and  was  acquitted  by  venal  judges.  A  word  spoken  by 
the  injured  husband  would  have  insured  his  condemnation, 
but  that  word  Caesar  would  not  speak.  His  wife  he  could 
divorce,  but  he  would  not  jeopardize  his  power  with  his  own 
party  by  demanding  the  punishment  of  him  who  had  debauched 
her. 


INTRODUCTION. 


15 


War.  During  liis  year  of  office  he  seems  to  have 
ruled  almost  supreme  and  almost  alone.  The  Senate 
was  forced  to  do  his  bidding,  and  Pompey,  at  any  rate 
for  this  year,  was  his  ally.  We  already  know  that  to 
praetors  and  to  consuls,  after  their  year  of  office  in  the 
city,  were  confided  the  government  of  the  great  prov¬ 
inces  of  the  Republic,  and  that  these  officers  while  so 
governing  were  called  propraetors  and  proconsuls. 
After  his  praetorship  Caesar  had  gone  for  a  year  to 
southern  Spain,  the  province  which  had  been  assigned 
to  him,  whence  he  came  back  triumphant, — but  not  to 
enjoy  his  Triumph.  At  the  expiration  of  his  consul¬ 
ship  the  joint  provinces  of  Cisalpine  Gaul  and  Illy- 
ricum  were  assigned  to  him,  not  for  one  year,  but  for 
five  years;  and  to  these  was  added  Transalpine  Gaul, 
by  which  grant  dominion  was  given  to  him  over  all 
that  country  which  we  now  know  as  Northern  Italy, 
over  Illyria  to  the  east,  and  to  the  west  across  the 
Alps,  over  the  Roman  province  already  established  in 
the  south  of  France.  This  province,  bounded  on  the 
north  by  Lake  Leman  and  the  Swiss  mountains,  ran 
south  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  to  the  west  half  across 
the  great  neck  of  land  which  joins  Spain  to  the  conti¬ 
nent  of  Europe,  This  province  of  Transalpine  Gaul 
was  already  Roman,  and  to  Caesar  was  intrusted  the 
task  of  defending  this,  and  of  defending  Rome  itself, 
from  the  terrible  valor  of  the  Gauls.  That  he 
might  do  this  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  collect 
his  legions  in  that  other  Gaul  which  we  now  know  as 
the  north  of  Italy. 

It  does  not  seem  that  there  was  any  preconceived 
idea  that  Caesar  should  reduce  all  Gallia  beneath  the 
Roman  yoke.  Hitherto  Rome  had  feared  the  Gauls, 
and  had  been  subject  to  their  inroads.  The  Gauls  in 


CJSSAR 


*  16 

former  years  liad  even  made  their  way  as  invaders  into 
the  very  city,  and  had  been  bought  out  with  a  ransom. 
They  had  spread  themselves  over  Northern  Italy,  and 
hence,  when  Northern  Italy  was  conquered  by  Roman 
arms,  it  became  a  province  under  the  name  of  Cisalpine 
G-aul.  Then,  during  the  hundred  years  which  preced¬ 
ed  Caesar’s  wars,  a  province  was  gradually  founded 
and  extended  in  the  south  of  France,  of  which  Marseil¬ 
les  was  the  kernel.  Massilia  had  been  a  colony  of 
Greek  merchants,  and  was  supported  by  the  alliance  of 
Rome.  Whither  such  alliance  leads  is  known  to  all 
readers  of  history.  The  Greek  colony  became  a  Roman 
town,  and  the  Roman  province  stretched  itself  around 
the  town.  It  was  Caesar’s  duty,  as  governor  of  Trans¬ 
alpine  Gaul,  to  see  that  the  poor  province  was  not  hurt 
by  those  ravaging  Gauls.  How  he  performed  that  duty 
he  tells  us  in  his  first  Commentary. 

During  the  fourth  year  of  his  office,  while  Pompey 
and  Crassus,  his  colleagues  in  the  then  existing  trium¬ 
virate,  were  consuls,  his  term  of  dominion  over  the 
three  provinces  was  prolonged  by  the  addition  of  five 
other  years.  But  he  did  not  see  the  end  of  the  ten 
years  in  that  scene  of  action.  Julia,  his  daughter,  had 
died,  aud  his  great  rival  was  estranged  from  him.  The 
Senate  had  clamored  for  his  recall,  and  Pompey,  with 
doubtful  words,  had  assented.  A  portion  of  his  army 
was  demanded  from  him,  was  sent  by  him  into  Italy 
in  obedience  to  the  Senate,  and  shortly  afterwards  was 
placed  under  the  command  of  Pompey.  Then  Ca3sar 
found  that  the  Italian  side  of  the  Alps  was  the  more 
convenient  for  his  purposes,  that  the  Hither  or  Cis¬ 
alpine  Gaul  demanded  his  services,  and  that  it  would 
be  wrell  for  him  to  be  near  the  Rubicon.  The  second 
Commentary,  in  three  books,  ‘  De  Bello  Civili,’  giving 


INTRODUCTION. 


1? 


us  big  record  of  the  civil  war,  tells  us  of  liis  deeds  and 
fortunes  for  the  next  two  years,— the  years  n.  c.  49 
and  48.  The  continuation  of  his  career  as  a  general  is 
related  in  three  other  Commentaries,  not  by  his  own 
hand,  to  which,  as  being  beyond  the  scope  of  this  vol¬ 
ume,  only  short  allusion  will  be  made.  Then  came 
one  year  of  power,  full  of  glory,  and,  upon  the  whole, 
well  used;  and  after  that  there  came  the  end,  of  which 
the  tale  has  been  so  often  told,  when  he  fell,  stabbed 
by  friend  and  foe,  at  the  foot  of  Pompey’s  pillar  in  the 
Capitol. 

It  is  only  further  necessary  that  a  few  words  should 
be  added  as  to  the  character  of  Caesar’s  writings, — for 
it  is  of  his  writings  rather  than  of  his  career  that  it  is 
intended  here  to  give  some  idea  to  those  who  have  not 
an  opportunity  of  reading  them.  Caesar’s  story  can 
hardly  be  told  in  this  little  volume,  for  it  is  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  world  as  the  world  then  was.  The  word 
which  our  author  has  chosen  as  a  name  for  his  work, — 
and  which  now  has  become  so  well  known  as  connected 
with  Caesar,  that  he  who  uses  it  seems  to  speak  of  Caesar, 
— means,  in  Caesar’s  sense,  a  Memoir.  Were  it  not  for 
Caesar,  a  “Commentary”  would  be  taken  to  signify  that 
which  the  critic  had  added,  rather  than  the  work  which 
the  author  had  first  produced.  Caesar’s  ‘  ‘Commentaries” 
are  memoirs  written  by  himself,  descriptive  of  his  differ¬ 
ent  campaigns,  in  which  he  treats  of  himself  in  the  third 
person,  and  tells  his  story  as  it  might  have  been  told 
by  some  accompanying  scribe  or  secretary.  This  being 
so,  we  are  of  course  driven  to  inquire  whether  some 
accompanying  scribe  or  secretary  may  not  in  truth  have 
done  the  work.  And  there  is  doubtless  one  great,  argu¬ 
ment  which  must  be  powerful  with  us  all  towards  the 
adoption  of  such  a  surmise.  The  amount  of  work  which 


18 


Caesar  liad  on  hand,  not  only  in  regard  to  his  campaigns, 
but  in  the  conduct  of  his  political  career,  was  so  great 
as  to  have  overtasked  any  brain  without  the  addition  of 
literary  labor.  Surely  no  man  was  ever  so  worked; 
for  the  doctrine  of  the  division  of  labor  did  not  pre 
vail  then  in  great  affairs  as  it  does  now.  Caesar  was  not 
only  a  general;  he  was  also  an  engineer,  an  astrono¬ 
mer,  an  orator,  a  poet,  a  high  priest — to  whom,  as  such, 
though  himself,  as  we  are  told,  a  disbeliever  in  the  gods 
of  Olympus,  the  intricate  and  complicated  system  of 
Roman  worship  was  a  necessary  knowledge.  And  he 
was  a  politician,  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that,  though 
he  was  intimately  acquainted  with  the  ferocity  of  op¬ 
position,  he  knew  nothing  of  its  comparative  leisure. 
We  have  had  busy  statesmen  writing  books,  two  prime 
ministers  translating  Homer,  another  writing  novels,  a 
fourth  known  as  a  historian,  a  dramatist,  and  a  biog¬ 
rapher.  But  they  did  not  lead  armies  as  well  as  the 
Houses  of  Parliament,  and  they  w~ere  occasionally  blessed 
by  the  opportunities  of  comparative  political  retirement 
which  opposition  affords.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
Gallic  war,  Caesar  was  fighting  in  person  every  year  but 
one  till  he  died.  It  was  only  by  personal  fighting  that 
he  could  obtain  success.  The  reader  of  the  following 
pages  will  find  that,  with  the  solitary  exception  of  the 
siege  of  Marseilles,  nothing  great  was  done  for  him  in 
his  absence.  And  he  had  to  make  his  army  as  well  as 
to  lead  it.  Legion  by  legion,  he  had  to  collect  it  as  he 
needed  it,  and  to  collect  it  by  the  force  of  his  own  char¬ 
acter  and  of  his  own  name.  The  abnormal  plunder 
with  which  it  was  necessary  that  his  soldiers  should  be 
allured  to  abnormal  valor  and  toil  had  to  be  given  as 
though  from  his  own  hand.  For  every  detail  of  the  sol¬ 
diers’  work  he  was  responsible;  and  at  the  same  time 


INTRODUCTION. 


19 


it  was  incumbent  on  him  so  to  manipulate  his  Roman 
enemies  at  Rome, — and  harder  still  than  that,  his  Ro¬ 
man  friends, — that  confusion  and  destruction  should 
not  fall  upon  him  as  a  politician.  Thus  weighted,  could 
he  write  his  own  Commentaries?  There  is  reason  to 
believe  that  there  was  collected  by  him,  no  doubt  with 
the  aid  of  his  secretaries,  a  large  body  of  notes  which 
were  known  as  the  Ephemerides  of  Caesar,— jottings 
down,  as  we  may  say,  taken  from  day  to  day.  Were 
not  the  Commentaries  which  bear  Caesar’s  name  com¬ 
posed  from  these  notes  by  some  learned  and  cunning 
secretary? 

These  notes  have  been  the  cause  of  much  scholastic 
wrath  to  some,  of  the  editors  and  critics.  One  learned 
German,  hotly  arguing  that  Caesar  wrote  no  Ephem¬ 
erides,  does  allow  that  somebody  must  have  written 
down  the  measurements  of  the  journeys,  of  the  moun¬ 
tains,  and  of  the  rivers,  the  number  also  of  the  cap¬ 
tives  and  of  the  slaves.*  “  Not  even  I,”  says  he, — 
“not  even  do  I  believe  that  Caesar  was  able  to  keep 
all  these  things  simply  in  his  memory.”  Then  he  goes 
on  to  assert  that  to  the  keeping  of  such  notes  any 
scribe  was  equal;  and  that  it  was  improbable  that 
Caesar  could  have  found  time  for  the  keeping  of  notes 
when  absolutely  in  his  tent.  The  indignation  and 
enthusiasm  are  comic,  but  the  reasoning  seems  to 
be  good.  The  notes  were  probably  collected  under 
Caesar’s  immediate  eyes  by  his  secretaries;  but  there 
is  ample  evidence  that  the  Commentaries  themselves 
are  Caesar’s  own  work.  They  seem  to  have  become 
known  at  once  to  the  learned  Romans  of  the  day;  and 
Cicero,  who  was  probably  the  most  learned,  and  cer- 


*  Nipperdeius. 


20 


C./E8AR. 


tainly  the  best  critic  of  the  time,  speaks  of  them  with¬ 
out  any  doubt  as  to  their  authorship.  It  was  at  once 
known  that  the  first  seven  books  of  the  Gallic  War 
were  written  by  Caesar,  and  that  the  eighth  was  not. 
This  seems  to  be  conclusive.  But  in  addition  to  this, 
there  is  internal  evidence.  Caesar  writes  in  the  third 
person,  and  is  very  careful  to  maintain  that  mode  of 
expression.  But  he  is  not  so  careful  but  that  on  three 
or  four  occasions  he  forgets  himself,  and  speaks  in  the 
first  person.  No  other  writer,  writing  for  Caesar,  would 
have  done  so.  And  there  are  certain  trifles  in  the 
mode  of  telling  the  story,  which  must  have  been  per¬ 
sonal  to  the  man.  He  writes  of  “  young  ”  Crassus,  and 
“young”  Brutus,  as  no  scribe  would  have  written; 
and  he  shows,  first  his  own  pride  in  obtaining  a  legion 
from  Pompey’s  friendship,  aud  then  his  unmeasured 
disgust  when  the  Senate  demand  and  obtain  from  him 
that  legion  and  another  one,  and  when  Pompey  uses 
them  against  himself,  in  a  fashion  which  would  go  far 
to  prove  the  authenticity  of  each  Commentary,  were 
any  proof  needed.  But  the  assent  of  Caesar’s  contem¬ 
poraries  suffices  for  this  without  other  evidence. 

And  it  seems  that  they  were  written  as  the  wars 
were  carried  on,  and  that  each  was  published  at  once. 
Had  it  not  been  so,  we  could  not  understand  that 
Caesar  should  have  begun  the  second  Commentary 
before  he  had  finished  the  first.  It  seems  that  he 
was  hindered  by  the  urgency  of  the  Civil  War  from 
writing  what  with  him  would  have  been  the  two 
last  books  of  the  Gallic  War,  and  therefore  put  the 
completion  of  that  work  into  the  hands  of  his  friend 
Ilirtius,  who  wrote  the  memoir  of  the  two  years  in 
one  book.  And  Caesar’s  mode  of  speaking  of  men  who 
were  at  one  time  his  friends  and  then  his  enemies, 


ItfTROD  VCTION. 


21 


shows  that  his  first  Commentary  was  completed  and 
out  of  hand  before  the  other  was  written.  Labienus, 
who  in  the  Gallic  War  was  Caesar’s  most  trusted  lieu¬ 
tenant,  went  over  to  the  other  side  and  served  under 
Pompey  in  the  Civil  War.  He  could  not  have  failed 
to  allude  in  some  way  to  the  desertion  of  Labienus, 
in  the  first  Commentary,  had  Labienus  left  him  and 
joined  Pompey  while  the  first  Commentary  was  still 
in  his  hands. 

His  style  was  at  once  recognized  by  the  great  literary 
critic  of  the  day  as  being  excellent  for  its  intended 
purpose.  Caesar  is  manifestly  not  ambitious  of  liter¬ 
ary  distinction,  but  is  very  anxious  to  convey  to  his 
readers  a  narrative  of  his  own  doings,  which  shall  be 
graphic,  succinct,  intelligible,  and  sufficiently  well  ex¬ 
pressed  to  insure  the  attention  of  readers.  Cicero,  the 
great  critic,  thus  speaks  of  the  Commentaries:  “  Yalde 
quidam,  inquam,  probandos;  nudi  enim  sunt,  recti,  et 
venusti,  omni  ornatu  orationis,  tanquam,  veste,  de- 
tracto,”  The  passage  is  easily  understood,  but  not 
perhaps  very  easily  translated  into  English.  “I  pro¬ 
nounce  them,  indeed,  to  be  very  commendable,  for 
they  are  simple,  straightforward,  agreeable,  with  all 
rhetorical  ornament  stripped  from  them,  as  a  garment 
is  stripped.”  This  was  written  by  Cicero  while  Caesar 
was  yet  living,  as  the  context  shows.  And  Cicero 
does  not  mean  to  imply  that  Caesar’s  writings  are  bald 
or  uncouth:  the  word  “venusti”  is  evidence  of 
this.  And  again,  speaking  of  Caesar’s  language, 
Cicero  says  that  Caesar  spoke  with  more  finished 
choice  of  words  than  almost  any  other  orator  of  the 
day.  And  if  he  so  spoke,  he  certainly  so  wrote,  for 
the  great  speeches  of  the  Romans  were  all  written 
compositions.  Montaigne  says  of  Caesar:  “  I  read  this 


22 


0JB8A& 


author  with  somewhat  more  reverence  and  respect  than 
is  usually  allowed  to  human  writings,  one  while  con¬ 
sidering  him  in  his  person,  by  his  actions  and  miracu¬ 
lous  greatness,  and  another  in  the  purity  and  inimitable 
polish  of  his  language  and  style,  wherein  he  not  only 
excels  all  other  historians,  as  Cicero  confesses,  but  per- 
adventure  even  Cicero  himself.”  Cicero,  however, 
confesses  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  Montaigne  is  so  far 
wrong.  Caesar  was  a  great  favorite  with  Montaigne, 
who  always  speaks  of  his  hero  with  glowing  enthu¬ 
siasm.  . 

To  us  who  love  to  make  our  language  clear  by  the 
number  of  words  used,  and  who  in  writing  rarely  give 
ourselves  time  for  condensation,  the  closely-packed 
style  of  Caesar  is  at  first  somewhat  difficult  of  compre¬ 
hension.  It  cannot  be  read  otherwise  than  slowly 
till  the  reader’s  mind  is  trained  by  practice  to  Caesarean 
expressions,  and  then  not  with  rapidity.  Three  or 
four  adjectives,  or  more  probably  participles,  joined  to 
substantives  in  a  sentence,  are  continually  intended 
to  convey  an  amount  of  information  for  which,  with 
us,  three  or  four  other  distinct  sentences  would  be 
used.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  give  the  meaning  of 
Caesar  in  English  without  using  thrice  as  many  words 
as  he  uses.  The  same  may  be  said  of  many  Latin 
writers, — perhaps  of  all;  so  great  was  the  Roman 
tendency  to  condensation,  and  so  great  is  ours  to 
dilution.  But  with  Caesar,  though  every  word  means 
much,  there  are  often  many  words  in  the  same  sen¬ 
tence,  and  the  reader  is  soon  compelled  to  acknowledge 
that  skipping  is  out  of  the  question,  and  that  quick 
reading  is  undesirable. 

That  which  will  most  strike  the  ordinary  English 
reader  in  the  narrative  of  Caesar  is  the  cruelty  of  the 


INTRODUCTION. 


23 


Romans, — cruelty  of  which  Caesar  himself  is  guilty  to 
a  frightful  extent,  and  of  which  he  never  expresses 
horror.  And  yet  among  his  contemporaries  he  achiev¬ 
ed  a  character  for  clemency  which  he  has  retained  to 
the  present  day.  In  describing  the  character  of  Caesar, 
without  reference  to  that  of  his  contemporaries,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  declare  him  to  have  been  terribly 
cruel.  From  bloodthirstiness  he  slaughtered  none; 
but  neither  from  tenderness  did  he  spare  any.  All 
was  done  form  policy;  and  when  policy  seemed  to  him 
to  demand  blood,  he  could,  without  a  scruple, — as  far 
as  we  can  judge,  without  a  pang, — order  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  human  beings,  having  no  regard  to  number, 
sex,  age,  innocence,  or  helplessness.  Our  only  excuse 
for  him  is  that  he  was  a  Roman,  and  that  Romans  were 
indifferent  to  blood.  Suicide  was  with  them  the  com¬ 
mon  mode  of  avoiding  otherwise  inevitable  misfortune, 
and  it  was  natural  that  men  who  made  light  of  their 
own  lives  should  also  make  light  of  the  lives  of  others. 
Of  all  those  with  whose  names  the  reader  will  become 
acquainted  in  the  following  pages,  hardly  one  or  two 
died  in  their  beds.  Caesar  and  Pompey,  the  two  great 
ones,  were  murdered.  Dumnorix,  the  iEduan,  was 
killed  by  Caesar’s  orders.  Yercmgetorix,  the  gallant- 
est  of  the  Gauls,  was  kept  alive  for  years  that  his  death 
might  grace  Caesar’s  Triumph,  xiriovistus,  the  Ger¬ 
man,  escaped  from  Caesar,  but  we  hear  soon  after  of 
his  death,  and  that  the  Germans  resented  it.  He 
doubtless  was  killed  by  a  Roman  weapon.  What 
became  of  the  hunted  Ambiorix  we  do  not  know,  but 
his  brother  king  Cativolcus  poisoned  himself  with  the 
juice  of  yew-tree.  Crassus,  the  partner  of  Caesar  and 
Pompey  in  the  first  triumvirate,  was  killed  by  the 
Parthiaps.  Young  Crassus,  the  son,  Caesar’s,  officer  ip 


24 


CAESAR 


Gaul,  had  himself  killed  by  his  own  men  that  he 
might  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Parthians,  and  his 
head  was  cut  off  and  sent  to  his  father.  Labienus  fell 
at  Munda,  in  the  last  civil  war  with  Spain.  Quintus 
Cicero,  Caesar’s  lieutenant,  and  his  greater  brother,  the 
orator,  and  his  son,  perished  in  the  proscriptions  of 
the  second  triumvirate.  Titurius  and  Cotta  were 
slaughtered  with  all  their  army  by  Ambiorix.  Afra- 
nius  was  killed  by  Caesar’s  soldiers  after  the  last  battle 
in  Africa.  Petreius  was  hacked  to  pieces  in  amicable 
contest  by  King  Juba.  Yarro  indeed  lived  to  be  an 
old  man,  and  to  write  many  books.  Domitius,  who 
defended  Marseilles  for  Pompey,  was  killed  in  the 
flight  after  Pharsalia.  Trebonius,  who  attacked  Mar¬ 
seilles  by  land,  was  killed  by  a  son-in-law  of  Cicero  at 
Smyrna.  Of  Decimus  Brutus,  who  attacked  Marseilles 
by  sea,  one  Camillus  cut  off  the  head  and  sent  it  as  a 
present  to  Antony.  Curio,  who  attempted  to  master  the 
province  of  Africa  on  behalf  of  Caesar,  rushed  amidst 
his  enemies  swords  and  were  slaughtered.  King  Juba, 
who  conquered  him,  failing  to  kill  himself,  had  him¬ 
self  killed  by  a  slave.  Attius  Yarus,  who  had  held 
the  province  for  Pompey,  fell  afterwards  at  Munda. 
Marc  Antony,  Caesar’s  great  lieutenant  in  the  Pharsa- 
lian  wars,  stabbed  himself.  Cassius  Longinus,  another 
lieutenant  under  Caesar,  was  drowned.  Scipio,  Pom- 
pey's  partner  in  greatness  at  Pharsalia,  destroyed  him¬ 
self  in  Africa.  Bibulus,  his  chief  admiral,  pined  to 
death.  Young  Ptolemy,  to  whom  Pompey  fled,  was 
drowned  in  the  Nile.  The  fate  of  his  sister  Cleopatra 
is  known  to  all  the  world.  Pharnaces,  Caesar’s  enemy 
in  Asia,  fell  in  battle.  Cato  destroyed  himself  at  Utica. 
Pompey’s  eldest  son,  Cnaeus,  was  caught  wounded  in 
Spain  and  slaughtered.  Sextus  the  ypunger  was  killed 


INTRODUCTION. 


25 


some  years  afterward  by  one  of  Antony’s  soldiers. 
Brutus  and  Cassius,  tbe  two  great  conspirators,  both 
committed  suicide.  But  of  these  two  we  hear  little  or 
nothing  in  the  Commentaries;  nor  of  Augustus  Caesar, 
who  did  contrive  to  live  in  spite  of  all  the  bloodshed 
through  which  he  had  waded  to  the  throne.  Among 
the  whole  number  there  are  not  above  three,  if  so 
many,  who  died  fairly  fighting  in  battle. 

The  above  is  a  list  of  the  names  of  men  of  mark, — 
of  warrior’s  chiefly,  of  men  who,  with  their  eyes  open, 
knowing  what  was  before  them,  went  out  to  encounter 
danger  for  certain  purposes.  The  bloody  catalogue  is 
so  complete,  so  nearly  comprises  all  whose  names  are 
mentioned,  that  it  strikes  the  reader  with  almost  a 
comic  horror.  But  when  we  come  to  the  slaughter  of 
whole  towns,  the  devastation  of  country  effected  pur¬ 
posely  that  men  and  women  might  starve,  to  the 
abandonment  of  the  old,  the  young,  and  the  tender, 
that  they  might  perish  on  the  hillsides,  to  the  mutila¬ 
tion  of  crowds  of  men,  to  the  burning  of  cities  told  us 
in  a  passing  word,  to  the  drowning  of  many  thousands, 
— mentioned  as  we  should  mention  the  destruction  of 
a  brood  of  rats, — the  comedy  is  all  over,  and  the  heart 
becomes  sick.  Then  it  is  that  we  remember  that  the 
coming  of  Christ  has  changed  all  things,  and  that  men 
now, — though  terrible  things  have  been  done  since 
Christ  came  to  us, — are  not  as  men  were  in  the  days  of 
Csesar. 


I. 


CHAPTER  II. 

FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CAESAR  DRIVES 
FIRST  THE  SWISS  AND  THEN  THE  GERMANS  OUT  OF 
GAUL. — B.  C.  58. 

It  has  been  remarked  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
Caesar  does  not  appear  to  have  received  any  commission 
for  the  subjugation  of  Gaul  when  he  took  military 
charge  of  his  three  provinces.  The  Gauls  were  still 
feared  in  Rome,  and  it  was  his  duty  to  see  that  they  did 
not  make  their  way  over  the  Alps  into  the  Roman  terri¬ 
tory.  It  was  also  his  duty  to  protect  from  invasion, 
and  also  from  rebellion,  that  portion  of  Gaul  which  had 
already  been  constituted  a  Roman  province,  but  in 
which  the  sympathies  of  the  people  were  still  rather 
with  their  old  brethren  than  with  their  new  masters. 
The  experience,  however,  which  we  have  of  great  and 
encroaching  empires  tells  us  how  probable  it  is  that  the 
protection  of  that  which  the  strong  already  holds  should 
lead  to  the  grasping  of  more,  till  at  last  all  has  been 
grasped.  It  is  thus  that  our  own  empire  in  India  has 
grown.  It  was  thus  that  the  Spanish  empire  grew  in 
America.  It  is  thus  that  the  empire  of  the  United  States 
is  now  growing.  It  was  thus  that  Prussia,  driven,  as 
we  all  remember,  by  the  necessity  of  self-preservation, 


CJV8ARS  PROBABLE  INTENTIONS.  27 


took  Nassau  the  other  day,  and  Hanover  and  Holstein 
and  Hesse.  It  was  thus  that  the  wolf  claimed  all  the  river, 
not  being  able  to  endure  the  encroaching  lamb.  The 
humane  reader  of  history  execrates,  as  he  reads,  the 
cruel,  all-absorbing,  ravenous  wolf.  But  the  philo¬ 
sophical  reader  perceives  that  in  this  way,  and  in  no 
other,  is  civilization  carried  into  distant  lands.  The 
wolf,  though  he  be  a  ravenous  wolf,  brings  with  him 
energy  and  knowledge. 

What  may  have  been  Caesar’s  own  aspirations  in 
regard  to  Gaul,  when  the  government  of  the  provinces 
was  confided  to  him,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing. 
We  may  surmise, — indeed  we  feel  that  we  know, — that 
he  had  a  project  in  hand  much  greater  to  him,  in  his 
view  of  its  result,  than  could  be  the  adding  of  any 
new  province  to  the  Republic,  let  the  territory  added 
be  as  wild  as  all  Gaul.  He  had  seen  enough  of 
Roman  politics  to  know  that  real  power  in  Rome  could 
only  belong  to  a  master  of  legions.  Both  Marius  and 
Sulla  had  prevailed  in  the  city  by  means  of  the  armies 
which  they  had  levied  as  the  trusted  generals  of  the 
Republic.  Pompey  had  had  his  army  trained  to 
conquest  in  the  East,  and  it  had  been  expected  that 
he  also  would  use  it  to  the  same  end.  He  had  been 
magnanimous,  or  half-hearted,  or  imprudent  as  critics 
of  his  conduct  might  choose  to  judge  him  then  and 
may  choose  to  judge  him  now,  and  on  reaching  Italy 
from  the  East  had  disbanded  his  legions.  As'  a  con¬ 
sequence,  he  was  at  that  moment,  when  Caesar  was 
looking  out  into  the  future  and  preparing  his  own 
career,  fain  to  seek  some  influence  in  the  city  by  join¬ 
ing  himself  in  a  secret  compact  with  Caesar,  his  natural 
enemy,  and  with  Crassus.  Caesar,  seeing  all  this, 
knowing  how  Marius  and  Sulla  had  succeeded  and  had 


28  THE  T VAR  IN  GA  EL. — FIRST  BOOK. 

failed,  seeing  what  had  come  of  the  magnanimity  of 
Pompey — resolved  no  doubt  that,  whatever  miget  be 
the  wars  in  which  they  should  be  trained,  he  would 
have  trained  legions  at  his  command.  When,  there¬ 
fore,  he  first  found  a  cause  for  war,  he  was  ready  for 
war.  He  had  not  been  long  proconsul  before  there 
came  a  wicked  lamb  and  drank  at  his  stream. 

In  describing  to  us  the  way  in  which  he  conquered 
lamb  after  lamb  throughout  the  whole  country  which 
he  calls  Gallia,  he  tells  us  almost  nothing  of  himself. 
O fhis  own  political  ideas,  of  his  own  ambition,  even 
of  his  doings  in  Italy  through  those  winter  months 
which  he  generally  passed  on  the  Roman  side  of  the 
Alps,  having  left  his  army  in  winter  quarters  nnder 
his  lieutenants,  he  says  but  a  very  few  words.  His 
record  is  simply  the  record  of  the  campaigns;  and 
although  he  now  and  then  speaks  of  the  dignity  of 
the  Republic,  he  hardly  ever  so  far  digresses  from  the 
narrative  as  to  give  to  the  reader  any  idea  of  the 
motives  by  which  he  is  actuated.  Once  in  these  seven 
memoirs  of  seven  years’  battling  in  Gaul,  and  once 
only,  does  he  refer  to  a  motive  absolutely  personal  to 
himself.  When  he  succeeded  in  slaughtering  a  fourth 
of  the  emigrating  Swiss,  which  was  his  first  military 
success  in  Gaul,  he  tells  us  that  he  had  then  revenged 
an  injury  to  himself  as  well  as  an  injury  to  the  Re 
public,  because  the  grandfather  of  his  father-in-law 
had  in  former  wars  been  killed  by  the  very  tribe  which 
he  had  just  destroyed! 

It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  he  does  not  intention¬ 
ally  speak  in  the  first  person,  and  that  when  he  does  so 
it  is  in  some  passage  of.  no  moment,  in  which  the  per¬ 
sonality  is  accidental  and  altogether  trivial.  He  does 
not  speak  of  “I  ”  and  “  me,”  but  of  Caesar,  as  though 


THE  MANNER  OF  CAESAR’S  NARRATIVE .  29 

he,  Caesar,  who  wrote  the  Commentary,  were  not  the 
Caesar  of  whom  he  is  writing.  Not  unfreqently  he 
speaks  strongly  in  praise  of  himself ;  but  as  there  is  no 
humility  in  his  tone,  so  also  is  there  no  pride,  even 
when  he  praises  himself.  He  never  seems  to  boast, 
though  he  tells  us  of  his  own  exploits  as  he  does  of 
those  of  his  generals  and  centurions.  Without  any 
diffidence  he  informs  us  now  and  again  how,  at  the  end 
of  this  or  that  campaign,  a  “supplication,”  or  public 
festival  and  thanksgiving  for  his  victories,  was  decreed 
in  Rome,  on  the  hearing  of  the  news, — to  last  for 
fifteen  or  twenty  days,  as  the  case  might  be. 

Of  his  difficulties  at  home, — the  political  difficulties 
with  which  he  had  to  contend, — he  says  never  a  word. 
And  yet  at  times  they  must  have  been  very  harassing. 
We  hear  from  other  sources  that  during  these  wars  in 
Gaul  his  conduct  was  violently  reprobated  in  Rome, 
in  that  he  had,  with  the  utmost  cruelty,  attacked  and 
crushed  states  supposed  to  be  in  amity  with  Rome, 
and  that  it  was  once  even  proposed  to  give  him  up  to 
the  enemy  as  a  punishment  for  grievous  treachery  to 
the  enemy.  Had  it  been  so  resolved  by  the  Roman 
Senate, — had  such  a  law  been  enacted, — the  power  to 
carry  out  the  law  would  have  been  wanted.  It  was 
easier  to  grant  a  “supplication  ”  for  twenty  days  than 
to  stop  his  career  after  his  legions  had  come  to  know 
him. 

No?  is  there  very  much  said  by  Caesar  of  his  strategic 
difficulties;  though  now  and  then,  especially  when  his 
ships  are  being  knocked  about  on  the  British  coast,  and 
again  when  the  iron  of  his  heel  has  so  bruised  the  Gauls 
that  they  all  turn  against  him  in  one  body  under  Ver- 
cingetorix,  the  reader  is  allowed  to  see  that  he  is 
pressed  hard  enough.  But  it  is  his  rule  to  tell  the 


30  TEE  WAR  IK  GA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


thing  he  means  to  do,  the  way  he  does  it,  and  the  com¬ 
pleteness  of  the  result,  in  the  fewest  possible  words. 
If  any  student  of  the  literature  of  battles  would  read 
first  Caesar’s  seven  books  of  the  Gallic  War,  and  then 
Mr.  Kinglake’s  first  four  volumes  of  the  ‘  Invasion  of  the 
Crimea,’ he  would  be  able  to  compare  two  most  won¬ 
derful  examples  of  the  dexterous  use  of  words,  in  the 
former  of  which  the  narrative  is  told  with  the  utmost 
possible  brevity,  and  in  the  latter  with  almost  the 
utmost  possible  prolixity.  And  yet  each  narrative 
is  equally  clear,  and  each  equally  distinguished  by  so 
excellent  an  arrangement  of  words,  that  the  reader 
is  forced  to  acknowledge  that  the  storv  is  told  to  him  by 
a  great  master. 

In  praising  others, — his  lieutenants,  his  soldiers,  and 
occasionally  his  enemies, — Csesar  is  often  enthusiastic, 
though  the  praise  is  conferred  by  a  word  or  two, — is 
given,  perhaps,  simply  in  an  epithet  added  on  for  that 
purpose  to  a  sentence  planned  with  a  wholly  different 
purpose.  Of  blame  he  is  very  sparing;  so  much  so, 
that  it  almost  seems  that  he  looked  upon  certain 
imperfections,  in  regard  even  to  faith  as  well  as  valor 
or  prudence,  as  necessary  to  humanity,  and  pardonable 
because  of  their  necessity.  He  can  tell  of  the  absolute 
destruction  of  a  legion  through  the  folly  and  perhaps 
cowardice  of  one  of  his  lieutenants,  without  heaping  a 
word  of  reproach  on  the  name  of  the  unfortunate.  He 
can  relate  how  a  mucli-favored  tribe  fell  off  from  their 
faith  again  and  again  without  expressing  anger  at  their 
faithlessness,  and  can  explain  how  they  were, — hardly 
forgiven,  but  received  again  as  friends, — because  it 
suited  him  so  to  treat  them.  But  again  he  can  tell  us, 
without  apparently  a  quiver  of  the  pen,  how  he  could 
devote  to  destruction  a  city  with  all  its  women  and  all 


THE  MANNER  OF  (JMbSARS  NARRATIVE.  31 


its  children,  so  that  other  cities  might  know  what 
would  come  to  them  if  they  did  not  yield  and  obey, 
and  become  vassals  to  the  godlike  hero  in  whose 
hands  Providence  had  placed  their  lives  and  their 
possessions. 

It  appears  that  Caesar  never  failed  to  believe  in 
himself.  He  is  far  too  simple  in  his  language,  and  too 
conscious  of  his  own  personal  dignity,  to  assert  that 
he  has  never  been  worsted.  But  his  very  simplicity 
seems  to  convey  the  assurance  that  such  cannot  ulti¬ 
mately  be  the  result  of  any  campaign  in  which  he  is 
engaged.  He  seems  to  imply  that  victory  attends  him 
so  certainly  that  it  would  be  futile  in  any  case  to  dis¬ 
cuss  its  probability.  He  feared  no  one,  and  was  there¬ 
fore  the  cause  of  awe  to  others.  He  could  face  his 
own  legions  when  they  would  not  obey  his  call  to 
arms,  and  reduce  them  to  obedience  by  a  word. 
Lucan,  understanding  his  character  well,  says  of  him 
that  “he  deserved  to  be  feared,  for  he  feared  nothing;” 
‘  ‘  meruitque  timeri  Nil  metuens.  ”  He  writes  of  himself 
as  we  might  imagine  some  god  would  write  who  kuew 
that  his  divine  purpose  must  of  course  prevail,  and 
who  would  therefore  never  be  in  the  way  of  entertain¬ 
ing  a  doubt.  With  Caesar  there  is  always  this  godlike 
simplicity,  which  makes  his  “Veni,  vidi,  vici,”  the 
natural  expression  of  his  mind  as  to  his  own  mode  of 
action.  The  same  thing  is  felt  in  the  very  numerous 
but  very  brief  records  of  the  punishments  which  he  in¬ 
flicted.  Cities  are  left  desolate,  as  it  were  with  a  wave 
of  his  hand,  but  he  hardly  deigns  to  say  that  his  own 
hand  has  even  been  waved.  He  tells  us  of  one  Acco 
who  had  opposed  him,  that,  ‘  ‘  Graviore  sententia  pro- 
nunciata,” — as  though  there  had  been  some  jury  to 
pronounce  this  severe  sentence,  which  was  in  fact  pro- 


32  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


nounced  only  by  himself,  Caesar, — he  inflicted  punish¬ 
ment  on  him  “  more  majorum.”  We  learn  from  other 
sources  that  this  punishment  consisted  in  being  strip¬ 
ped  naked,  confined  by  the  neck  in  a  cleft  stick,  and 
then  being  flogged  to  death.  In  the  next  words,  hav¬ 
ing  told  us  in  half  a  sentence  that  he  had  made  the 
country  too  hot  to  hold  the  fugitive  accomplices  of  the 
tortured  chief,  he  passes  on  into  Italy  with  the  majes¬ 
tic  step  of  one  much  too  great  to  dwell  long  on  these 
small  but  disagreeable  details.  And  we  feel  that  he  is 
too  great. 

It  has  been  already  said  that  the  great  proconsular 
wolf  was  not  long  in  hearing  that  a  lamb  had  come 
down  to  drink  of  his  stream.  The  Helvetii,  or  Swiss, 
as  we  call  them, — those  tribes  which  lived  on  the  Lake 
Leman,  and  among  the  hills  and  valleys  to  the  north 
of  the  lake, — had  made  up  their  minds  that  they  were 
inhabiting  but  a  poor  sort  of  country,  and  that  they 
might  considerably  better  themselves  by  leaving  their 
mountains  and  going  into  some  part  of  G-aul,  in  which 
they  might  find  themselves  stronger  than  the  existing 
tribes,  and  might  take  possession  of  the  fat  of  the  land. 
In  doing  so,  their  easiest  way  out  of  their  own  country 
would  lie  by  the  Rhone,  where  it  now  runs  through 
Geneva  into  France.  But  in  taking  this  route  the 
Swiss  would  be  obliged  to  pass  over  a  corner  of  the 
Roman  province.  Here  was  a  case  of  the  lamb  troub¬ 
ling  the  waters  with  a  vengeance.  When  this  was  told 
Caesar, — that  these  Swiss  intended,  “facere  iter  per 
Provinciam  nostram” — “to  do  their  traveling  through 
our  province,” — he  hurried  over  the  Alps  into  Gaul,  and 
came  to  Geneva  as  fast  as  he  could  travel. 

He  begins  his  fiirst  book  by  a  geographical  definition 
of  Gaul,  which  no  doubt  was  hardly  accurate,  but  which 


THE  EMIGRATION  OF  THE  HELVETIL  33- 


gives  us  a  singularly  clear  idea  of  that  which  Caesar  de¬ 
sired  to  convey.  In  speaking  of  Gallia  he  intends  to  signify 
the  whole  country  from  the  outflow  of  the  Rhine  into 
the  ocean  down  to  the  Pyrenees,  and  then  eastward  to 
the  Rhone,  to  the  Swiss  mountains,  and  the  borders  of 
the  Roman  province.  This  he  divides  into  three  parts, 
telling  us  that  the  Belgians  inhabited  the  part  north  of 
the  Seine  and  Marne,  the  people  of  Aquitania  the  south 
part  of  the  Garonne,  and  the  Gauls  or  Celts  the  inter¬ 
mediate  territory.  Having  so  far  described  the  scene 
of  his  action,  he  rushes  off  at  once  to  the  dreadful  sin 
of  the  Swiss  emigrants  in  desiring  to  pass  through 
“  our  province.” 

He  has  but  one  legion  in  Further  Gaul,  —that  is, 
in  the  Roman  province  on  the  further  side  of  the  Alps 
from  Rome ;  and  therefore,  when  ambassadors  come  to 
him  from  the  Swiss,  asking  permission  to  go  through 
the  corner  of  land,  and  promising  that  they  will  do  no 
harm  in  their  passage,  he  temporizes  with  them.  He 
can’t  give  them  an  answer  just  then,  but  must  think  of 
it.  They  must  come  back  to  him  by  a  certain  day, — 
when  he  will  have  more  soldiers  ready.  Of  course  he 
refuses.  The  Swiss  make  some  slight  attempt,  but 
soon  give  that  matter  up  in  despair.  There  is  another  way 
by  which  they  can  get  out  of  their  mountains, — through 
the  territory  of  a  people  called  Sequani ;  and  for  doing 
this  they  obtain  leave.  But  Caesar  knows  how  injurious 
the  Swiss  lambs  will  be  to  him  and  his  wolves,  should 
they  succeed  in  getting  round  to  the  back  of  his  prov¬ 
ince, — that  Roman  province  which  left  the  name  of 
Provence  in  modern  France  till  France  refused  to  be 
divided  any  longer  into  provinces.  And  he  is,  more¬ 
over,  invited  by  certain  friends  of  the  Roman  Republic, 
called  the  iEdui,  to  come  and  stop  these  rough  Swiss 


34  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL— FIRST  BOOK. 

/ 

travelers.  He  is  always  willing  to  lielp  the  HSdui, 
although  these  JEdui  are  a  fickle,  inconstant  people, — 
and  he  is,  above  all  things,  willing  to  get  to  war.  So 
he  comes  upon  the  rear  of  the  Swiss  when  three 
portions  of  the  people  have  passed  the  river  Arar 
(Saone),  and  one  portion  is  still  behind.  This  hinder- 
most  tribe, — for  the  wretches  were  all  of  one  tribe  or 
mountain  canton, — he  sets  upon  and  utterly  destroys; 
and  on  this  occasion  congratulates  himself  on  having 
avenged  himself  upon  the  slayers  of  the  grandfather 
of  his  father-in-law. 

There  can  be  nothing  more  remarkable  in  history 
than  this  story  of  the  attempted  emigration  of  the 
Helvetii,  which  Caesar  tells  us  without  the  expression 
of  any  wonder.  The  whole  people  made  up  their 
minds  that,  as  their  borders  were  narrow,  their  num¬ 
bers  increasing,  and  their  courage  good,  thsy  would  go 
forth, — men,  women,  and  children, — and  seek  other 
homes.  We  read  constantly  of  the  emigrations  of 
people, — of  the  Northmen  from  the  north  covering  the 
Southern  plains,  of  Danes  and  Jutes  entering  Britain, 
of  men  from  Scandinavia  coming  down  across  the 
Rhine,  and  the  like.  We  know  that  after  this  fashion 
the  world  has  become  peopled.  But  we  picture  to 
ourselves  generally  a  concourse  of  warriors  going  forth 
and  leaving  behind  them  homes  and  friends,  to  whom 
they  may  or  may  not  return.  With  these  Swiss 
wanderers  there  was  to  be  no  return.  All  that  they 
could  not  take  with  them  they  destroyed,  burning 
their  houses,  and  burning  even  their  corn,  so  'that 
there  should  be  no  means  of  turning  their  steps  back¬ 
ward.  They  do  make  considerable  progress,  getting 
as  far  into  France  as  Autun, — three-fourths  of  them 
at  least  getting  so  far;  but  near  this  they  are  brought 


THE  EMIGRATION  OFTIIE  HELVE  TIL  35 


to  an  engagement  by  Caesar,  who  outgenerals  them 
on  a  hill.  The  prestige  of  the  Romans  had  not  as  yet 
established  itself  in  these  parts,  and  the  Swiss  nearly 
have  the  best  of  it.  Csesar  owns,  as  he  does  not  own 
again  above  once  or  twice,  that  the  battle  between 
them  was  very  long,  and  for  long  very  doubtful.  But 
at  last  the  poor  Helvetii  are  driven  in  slaughter. 
Csesar,  however,  is  not  content  that  they  should 
simply  fly.  He  forces  them  back  upon  their  old 
territory, — upon  their  burnt  houses  and  devastated 
fields, — lest  certain  Germans  should  come  and  live 
there,  and  make  themselves  disagreeable.  And  they 
go  back ; — so  many,  at  least,  go  back  as  are  not  slain  in 
the  adventure.  With  great  attempt  at  accuracy,  Csesar 
tells  us  that  368,000  human  beings  went  out  on  the 
expedition,  and  that  110,000,  or  less  than  a  third, 
found  their  way  back.  Of  those  that  perished,  many 
hecatombs  had  been  offered  up  to  the  shade  of  his 
father-in-law’s  grandfather. 

Hereupon  the  Gauls  begin  to  see  how  great  a  man 
is  Caesar.  He  tells  us  that  no  sooner  was  that  war 
with  the  Swiss  finished  than  nearly  all  the  tribes  of 
Gallia  send  to  congratulate  him.  And  one  special 
tribe,  those  AEdui, — of  whom  we  hear  a  great  deal, 
and  whom  we  never  like  because  they  are  thoroughly 
anti-Gallican  in  all  their  doings  till  they  think  that 
Caesar  is  really  in  trouble,  and  then  they  turn  upon 
him, — have  to  beg  of  him  a  great  favor.  Two  tribes, 
— the  iEdui,  whose  name  seems  to  have  left  no  trace 
in  France,  and  the  Arverni,  whom  we  still  know  in 
Auvergne, — have  been  long  contending  for  the  upper 
hand;  whereupon  the  Arverni  and  their  friends  the 
Sequani  have  called  in  the  assistance  of  certain  Ger¬ 
mans  from  across  the  Rhine.  It  went  badly  then 


36  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK 


with  the  iEdui.  And  now  one  of  their  kings,  named 
Divitiacus,  implores  the  help  of  Caesar.  Would  Caesar 
he  kind  enough  to  expel  these  horrid  Germans,  and 
get  back  the  hostages,  and  free  them  from  a  burden¬ 
some  dominion,  and  put  things  a  little  to  rights? 
And,  indeed,  not  only  were  the  iEdui  suffering  from 
these  Germans,  and  their  king,  Ariovistus;  it  is  going 
still  worse  with  the  Sequani,  who  had  called  them  in. 
In  fact,  Ariovistus  was  an  intolerable  nuisance  to  that 
eastern  portion  of  Gaul.  Would  Caesar  be  kind 
enough  to  drive  him  out?  Caesar  consents,  and  then 
we  are  made  to  think  of  another  little  fable, — of  the 
prayer  which  the  horse  made  to  the  man  for  assistance 
in  his  contest  with  the  stag,  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  man  got  upon  the  horse,  and  never  got 
down  again.  Caesar  was  not  slow  to  mount,  and  when 
once  in  the  saddle,  certainly  did  not  mean  to  leave  it. 

Caesar  tells  us  his  reasons  for  undertaking  this  com¬ 
mission.  The  iEdui  had  often  been  called  “brothers” 
and  “cousins”  by  the  Roman  Senate;  and  it  was  not 
fitting  that  men  who  had  been  so  honored  should  be 
domineered  over  by  Germans.  And  then,  unless  these 
marauding  Germans  could  be  stopped,  they  would  fall 
into  the  habit  of  coming  across  the  Rhine,  and  at 
last  might  get  into  the  Province,  and  by  that  route 
into  Italy  itself.  And  Ariovistus  himself  was  per¬ 
sonally  so  arrogant  a  man  that  the  thing  must  be  made 
to  cease.  So  Caesar  sends  ambassadors  to  Ariovistus, 
and  invites  the  barbarian  to  a  meeting.  The  barbarian 
will  not  come  to  the  meeting.  If  he  wanted  to  see 
the  Roman,  he  would  go  to  the  Roman:  if  the  Roman 
wants  to  see  him,  the  Roman  may  come  to  him.  Such 
is  the  reply  of  Ariovistus.  Ambassadors  pass  between 
them,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  argument,  in  which 


,  _  ij 

ARIOVISTUS  AND  HIS  GERMANS.  37 

the  barbarian  has  the  best  of  it.  Csesar,  with  his  god¬ 
like  simplicity,  scorns  not  to  give  the  barbarian  the 
benefit  of  his  logic.  Ariovistus  reminds  Csesar  that 
the  Romans  have  been  in  the  habit  of  governing  the 
tribes  conquered  by  them  after  their  fashion,  without 
interference  from  him,  Ariovistus;  and  that  the  Ger¬ 
mans  claim  and  mean  to  exercise  the  same  right.  He 
goes  on  to  say  that  he  is  willing  enough  to  live  in 
amity  with  the  Romans;  but  will  Csesar  be  kind 
enough  to  remember  that  the  Germans  are  a  people 
unconquered  in  war,  trained  to  the  use  of  arms, 
and  how  hardy  he  might  judge  when  he  was  told 
that  for  fourteen  years  they  had  not  slept  under  a  roof? 
In  the  meantime  other  Gauls  were  complaining,  and 
begging  for  assistance.  The  Treviri,  people  of  the 
country  where  Treves  now  stands,  are  being  harassed 
by  the  terrible  yellow-haired  Suevi,  who  at  this  time 
seem  to  have  possessed  nearly  the  whole  of  Prussia  as 
it  now  exists  on  the  further  side  of  the  Rhine,  and 
who  had  the  same  desire  to  come  westward  that  the 
Prussians  have  evinced  since.  And  a  people  called 
the  Harudes,  from  the  Danube,  are  also  harassing 
the  poor  iEdui.  Caesar,  looking  at  these  things,  sees 
that  unless  he  is  quick,  the  northern  and  southern 
Germans  may  join  their  forces.  He  gets  together  his 
commissariat,  and  flies  at  Ariovistus  very  quickly. 

Throughout  all  his  campaigns,  Caesar,  as  did  Napo¬ 
leon  afterwards,  effected  everything  by  celerity.  He 
preaches  to  us  no  sermon  on  the  subject,  favors  us 
with  no  disquisition  as  to  the  value  of  despatch  in  war, 
but  constantly  tells  us  that  he  moved  all  his  army 
“  magnis  itineribus  ” — by  very  rapid  marches;  that  he 
went  on  with  his  work  night  and  day,  and  took  pre¬ 
cautions  “  magno  opere,” — with  much  labor  and  all 


38  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


his  care, — to  be  beforehand  with  the  enemy.  In  this 
instance  Ariovistus  tries  to  reach  a  certain  town  of  the 
poor  Sequani,  then  called  Vesontio,  now  known  to  us 
as  Besancon, — the  same  name,  but  very  much  altered. 
It  consisted  of  a  hill,  or  natural  fortress,  almost  sur¬ 
rounded  by  a  river,  or  natural  fosse.  There  is  nothing, 
says  Caesar,  so  useful  in  a  war  as  the  possession  of  a 
place  thus  naturally  strong.  Therefore  he  hurries  on 
and  gets  before  Ariovistus,  and  occupies  the  town. 
The  reader  already  begins  to  feel  that  Caesar  is  des¬ 
tined  to  divine  success.  The  reader  indeed  knows 
that  beforehand,  and  expects  nothing  worse  for  Caesar 
than  hairbreadth  escapes.  But  the  Romans  them¬ 
selves  had  not  as  yet  the  same  confidence  in  him. 
Tidings  are  brought  to  him  at  Yesontio  that  his  men 
are  terribly  afraid  of  the  Germans.  And  so,  no  doubt, 
they  were.  These  Romans,  though  by  the  art  of  war 
they  had  been  made  fine  soldiers, — though  they  had 
been  trained  in  the  Eastern  conquests  and  the  Punic 
wars,  and  invasions  of  all  nations  around  them, — were 
nevertheless,  up  to  this  day,  greatly  afraid  even  of  the 
Gauls.  The  coming  of  the  Gauls  into  Italy  had  been 
a  source  of  terror  to  them  ever  since  the  days  of 
Brennus.  And  the  Germans  were  worse  than  the 
Gauls.  The  boast  made  by  Ariovistus  that  his  men 
never  slept  beneath  a  roof  was  not  vain  or  useless. 
They  were  a  horrid,  hirsute,  yellow-haired  people,  the 
flashing  aspect  of  whose  eyes  could  hardly  be  endured 
by  an  Italian.  The  fear  is  so  great  that  the  soldiers 
“  sometimes  could  not  refrain  even  from  tears;” — 
“  neque  interdum  lacrimas  tenere  poterant.”  When 
we  remember  what  these  men  became  after  they  had 
been  a  while  with  Caesar,  their  bluddering  awe  of  the 
Germans  strikes  us  as  almost  comic.  And  we  are  re- 


A  RIO  VIST  US  AND  HIS  GERMANS.  39 


minded  that  the  Italians  of  those  days  were,  as  they  are 
now,  more  prone  to  show  the  outward  signs  of  emotion 
than  is  thought  to  he  decorous  with  men  in  more  northern 
climes.  We  can  hardly  realize  the  idea  of  soldiers  cry 
ing  from  fear.  Caesar  is  told  by  his  centurions  that  so 
great  is  this  feeling,  that  the  men  will  probably  refuse 
to  take  up  their  arms  when  called  upon  to  go  out  and 
fight;  whereupon  he  makes  a  speech  to  all  his  cap¬ 
tains  and  lieutenants,  full  of  boasting,  full  of  scorn,  full, 
no  doubt,  of  falsehood,  but  using  a  bit  of  truth  when¬ 
ever  the  truth  could  aid  him.  We  know  that  among 
other  great  gifts  Caesar  had  the  gift  of  persuasion. 
From  his  tongue,  also,  as  from  Nestor’s,  could  flow 
“  words  sweeter  than  honey,” — or  sharper  than  steel.  At 
any  rate,  if  others  will  not  follow  him,  his  tenth  legion, 
he  knows,  will  be  true  to  him.  He  will  go  forth  with 
that  one  legion,— if  necessary,  with  that  legion  of  true 
soldiers,  and  with  no  others.  Though  he  had  been  at 
his  work  but  a  short  time,  he  already  had  his  picked 
men,  his  guards,  his  favorite  regiments,  his  tenth 
legion;  and  he  knew  well  how  to  use  their  superiority 
and  valor  for  the  creation  of  those  virtues  in  others. 

Then  Ariovistus  sends  ambassadors,  and  declares 
that  he  now  is  willing  to  meet  Caesar!  Let  them  meet 
on  a  certain  plain,  each  bringing  only  his  cavalry 
guard.  Ariovistus  suggests  that  foot-soldiers  might 
be  dangerous,  knowing  that  Caesar’s  foot-soldiers  would 
be  Romans,  and  that  his  cavalry  are  Gauls.  Caesar 
agrees,  but  takes  men  out  of  his  own  tenth  legion, 
mounted  on  the  horses  of  the  less-trusted  allies.  The 
accounts  of  these  meetings,  and  the  arguments  which 
we  are  told  are  used  on  this  and  that  side,  are  very 
interesting.  We  are  bound  to  remember  that  Caesar 
is  telling  the  story  for  both  sides,  but  we  feel  that  he 


40  tee  WAR  m  GA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


tries  to  tell  it  fairly.  Ariovistus  had  very  little  to  say 
to  Caesar’s  demands,  but  a  great  deal  to  say  about  bis 
own  exploits.  The  meeting,  however,  was  broken  up 
by  an  attack  made  by  the  Germans  on  Caesar’s  mounted 
guard,  and  Caesar  retires, — not,  however,  before  be 
has  explained  to  Ariovistus  bis  grand  idea  of  the  pro¬ 
tection  due  by  Rome  to  her  allies.  Then  Ariovistus 
proposes  another  meeting,  which  Caesar  declines  to 
attend,  sending,  however,  certain  ambassadors.  Ario* 
vistus  at  once  throws  the  ambassadors  into  chains,  and 
then  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  a  fight. 

The  details  of  all  these  battles  cannot  be  given 
within  our  short  limits,  and  there  is  nothing  special 
in  this  battle  to  tempt  us  to  dwell  upon  it.  Caesar 
describes  to  us  the  way  in  which  the  German  cavalry 
and  infantry  fought  together,  the  footmen  advancing 
from  amidst  the  horsemen,  and  then  returning  for 
protection.  His  own  men  fight  well,  and  the  Ger¬ 
mans,  in  spite  of  their  flashing  eyes,  are  driven  head¬ 
long  in  a  rout  back  to  the  Rhine.  Ariovistus  succeeds 
in  getting  over  the  river  and  saving  himself,  but  he 
has  to  leave  his  two  daughters  behind,  and  his  two 
wives.  The  two  .wives  and  one  of  the  daughters  are 
killed ;  the  other  daughter  is  taken  prisoner.  Caesar  had 
sent  as  one  of  his  ambassadors  to  the  German,  a  certain 
dear  friend  of  his,  who,  as  we  heard  before,  was,  with 
his  comrade,  at  once  subjected  to  chains.  In  the  flight 
this  ambassador  is  recovered.  “  Which  thing,  indeed, 
gave  Caesar  not  less  satisfaction  than  the  victory  itself, 
— in  that  he  saw  one  of  the  lionestest  men  of  the  Pro¬ 
vince  of  Gaul,  his  own  familiar  friend  and  guest, 
rescued  from  the  hands  of  his  enemies  and  restored  to 
him.  Nor  did  Fortune  diminish  this  gratification  by 
any  calamity  inflicted  on  the  man.  Thrice,  as  he  him- 


ARIOVISTUS  AND  HIS  GERMANS. 


41 


self  told  tlie  tale,  had  it  been  decided  by  lot  in  his 
own  presence  whether  he  should  then  be  burned  alive 
or  reserved  for  another  time.  ”  So  Caesar  tells  the  story, 
and  we  like  him  for  his  enthusiasm,  and  are  glad  to  hear 
that  the  comrade  ambassador  also  is  brought  back. 

The  yellow-haired  Suevi,  when  they  hear  of  all 
this,  desist  from  their  invasion  on  the  lower  Rhine, 
and  hurry  back  into  their  own  country,  not  without 
misfortunes  on  the  road.  So  great  already  is  Caesar’s 
name,  that  tribes,  acting  as  it  were  on  his  side,  dare  to 
attack  even  the  Suevi.  Then,  in  his  “  Yeni,  vidi, 
vici  ”  style,  he  tells  us  that,  having  in  one  summer 
finished  off  two  wars,  he  is  able  to  put  his  army  into 
winter  quarters  even  before  the  necessary  time,  so  that 
he  himself  may  go  into  his  other  Gaul  across  the  Alps, 
— “ad  conventus  agendos,” — to  hold  some  kind  of 
session  or  assizes  for  the  Government  of  his  province, 
and  especially  to  collect  more  soldiers. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SECOND  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CAESAR  SUBDUES 
THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES. — B.C.  57. 

The  man  bad  got  on  tbe  horse’s  back,  but  the  horse 
had  various  disagreeable  enemies  in  attacking  whom  the 
man  might  be  ve  y  useful,  and  the  horse  was  therefore 
not  as  yet  anxious  to  unseat  his  rider.  Would  Caesar 
be  so  good  as  to  go  and  conquer  the  Belgian  tribes? 
Caesar  is  not  slow  in  finding  reasons  for  so  doing. 
The  Belgians  are  conspiring  together  against  him. 
Thev  think  that  as  all  Haul  has  been  reduced, — or 
“  pacified,”  as  Caesar  calls  it, — the  Roman  conqueror  will 
certainly  bring  his  valor  to  bear  upon  them,  and  that 
they  had  better  be  ready.  Caesar  suggests  that  it 
would  no  doubt  be  felt  by  them  as  a  great  grievance 
that  a  Roman  army  should  remain  all  the  winter  so 
near  to  them.  In  this  way,  and  governed  by  these 
considerations,  the  Belgian  lambs  disturb  the  stream 
very  sadly,  and  tbe  wolf  has  to  look  to  it.  He  collects 
two  more  legions,  and,  as  soon  as  the  earth  brings 
forth  the  food  necessary  for  his  increased  number  of 
/  men  and  horses,  he  hurries  off  against  these  Belgian 
tribes  of  Northern  Gallia.  Of  these,  one  tribe,  the 
Remi,  immediately  send  word  to  him  that  they  are 
not  wicked  lambs  like  the  others;  they  have  not 


CAESAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  43 


touched  the  waters.  All  the  other  Belgians,  say  the 
Remi,  and  with  them  a  parcel  of  Germans,  are  in  a  con¬ 
spiracy  together.  Even  their  very  next-door  neighbors, 
their  brothers  and  cousins,  the  Suessiones,  are  wicked; 
but  they,  the  Remi,  have  steadily  refused  even  to  sniff 
at  the  stream,  which  they  acknowledge  to  be  the 
exclusive  property  of  the  good  wolf.  Would  the  wolf 
be  kind  enough  to  come  and  take  possession  of  them 
and  all  their  belongings,  and  allow  them  to  be  the 
humblest  of  his  friends?  We  come  to  hate  these  Remi, 
as  we  do  the  kEdui;  but  they  are  wise  in  their  genera¬ 
tion,  and  escape  much  of  the  starvation  and  massa¬ 
cring  and  utter  ruin  to  which  the  other  tribes  are  sub¬ 
jected.  Among  almost  all  these  so-called  Belgian  tribes 
we  find  the  modern  names  which  are  familiar  to  us. 
Rheims  is  in  the  old  country  of  the  Remi,  Soissons  in 
that  of  the  Suessiones.  Beauvais  represents  the  Bel- 
lovaci,  Amiens  the  Ambiani,  Arras  the  Atrebates, 
Treves  the  Treviri, — as  has  been  pointed  out  before. 
Silva  Arduenna  is,  of  course,  the  Forest  of  Ardennes. 

The  campaign  is  commenced  by  an  attack  made  by  the 
other  Belgians  on  those  unnatural  Remi  who  have  gone 
over  to  the  Romans.  There  is  a  town  of  theirs,  Bibrax, 
now  known,  or  rather  not  known,  as  Bievre,  and  here 
the  Remi  are  besieged  by  their  brethren.  When 
Bibrax  is  on  the  point  of  falling, — and  we  can  imagine 
what  would  then  have  been  the  condition  of  the  towns¬ 
men, — they  send  to  Caesar,  who  is  only  eight  miles 
distant.  Unless  Caesar  will  help,  they  cannot  endure 
any  longer  such  onslaught  as  is  made  on  them.  Caesar, 
having  bided  his  tirng,  of  course  sends  help,  and  the 
poor  besieging  Belgians  fall  into  inextricable  confusion. 
They  agree  to  go  home,  each  to  his  own  country,  and 
from  thence  to  proceed  to  the  defence  of  any  tribe 


44  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— SECOND  BOOK. 


which  Caesar  might  attack.  “So,”  says  Caesar,  as  he 
ends  the  story  of  this  little  affair,  ‘  ‘  without  any  danger 
on  our  part,  our  men  killed  as  great  a  number  of  theirs 
as  the  space  of  the  day  would  admit.”  When  the  sun 
set,  and  not  till  then,  came  an  end  to  the  killing, — such 
having  been  the  order  of  Caesar. 

That  these  Belgians  had  really  formed  any  intention 
of  attacking  the  Roman  province,  or  even  any  Roman 
ally,  there  is  no  other  proof  than  that  Caesar  tells  us 
that  they  had  all  conspired.  But  whatever  might  be 
their  sin,  or  what  the  lack  of  sin  on  their  part,  he  is 
determined  to  go  on  with  the  war  till  he  has  subjugated 
them  altogether.  On  the  very  next  day  he  attacks  the 
Suessiones,  and  gets  as  far  as  Noviodunum, — Noyons. 
The  people  there,  when  they  see  how  terrible  are  his 
engines  of  war,  give  up  all  idea  of  defending  them¬ 
selves,  and  ask  for  terms.  The  Bellovaci  do  the  same. 
At  the  instigation  of  his  friends  the  Remi,  he  spares  the 
one  city,  and,  to  please  the  iEdui,  the  other.  But  he 
takes  away  all  their  arms,  and  exacts  hostages.  From 
the  Bellovaci,  because  they  have  a  name  as  a  powerful 
people,  he  takes  609  hostages.  Throughout  all  these 
wars  it  becomes  a  matter  of  wonder  to  us  what  Caesar 
did  with  all  these  hostages,  and  how  he  maintained 
them.  It  was,  however,  no  doubt  clearly  understood 
that  they  would  be  killed  if  the  town,  or  state,  or  tribe 
by  which  they  were  given  should  misbehave,  or  in  any 
way  thwart  the  great  conqueror. 

The  Ambiani  come  next,  and  the  ancestors  of  our 
intimate  friends  at  Amiens  soon  give  themselves  up. 
The  next  to  them  are  the  Nervii,  a  people  far  away  to 
the  north,  where  Lille  now  is  and  a  considerable  portion 
of  Flanders.  Of  these  Caesar  had  heard  wonderful 
travelers’  tales.  They  were  a  people  who  admitted  no 


GMSAB  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  45 


dealers  among  them,  being  in  this  respect  very  unlike 
their  descendants,  the  Belgians  of  to-day;  they  drank 
no  wine,  and  indulged  in  no  luxuries,  lest  their  martial 
valor  should  be  diminished.  They  send  no  ambassadors 
to  Caesar,  and  resolve  to  hold  their  own  if  they  can. 
They  trust  solely  to  infantry  in  battle,  and  know  noth¬ 
ing  of  horses.  Against  the  cavalry  of  other  nations, 
however,  they  are  wont  to  protect  themselves  by  arti¬ 
ficial  hedges,  which  they  make  almost  as  strong  as  walls. 

Caesar  in  attacking  the  Nervii  had  eight  legions,  and 
he  tells  us  how  he  advanced  against  them  “  consuetu- 
dine  su&,”— after  his  usual  fashion.  For  some  false  in¬ 
form  ition  had  been  given  to  the  Nervii  on  this  subject, 
which  brought  them  into  considerable  trouble.  He 
sent  on  first  his  cavalry,  then  six  legions,  the  legions 
consisting  solely  of  foot-soldiers;  after  these  all  the 
baggage,  commissariat,  and  burden  of  the  army,  com¬ 
prising  the  materials  necessary  for  sieges;  and  lastly, 
the  two  other  legions,  which  had  been  latest  enrolled. 
It  may  be  as  well  to  explain  here  that  the  legion  in  the 
time  of  Caesar  consisted  on  paper  of  six  thousand  heavy¬ 
armed  foot-soldiers.  There  were  ten  cohorts  in  a  legion, 
and  six  centuries,  or  six  hundred  men,  in  each  cohort. 
It  may  possibly  be  that,  as  with  our  regiments,  the 
numbers  were  frequently  not  full.  Eight  full  legions 
would  thus  have  formed  an  army  consisting  of  48,000 
infantry.  The  exact  number  of  men  under  his  orders 
Caesar  does  not  mention  here  or  elsewhere. 

According  to  his  own  showing,  Caesar  is  hurried  into 
a  battle  before  he  knows  where  he  is.  Caesar,  he  says, 
had  everything  to  do  himself,  all  at  the  same  time, — 
to  unfurl  the  standard  of  battle,  to  give  the  signal  with 
the  trumpet,  to  get  back  the  soldiers  from  their  work, 
to  call  back  some  who  had  gone  to  a  distance  for  stuff 


46  the  war  in  a  a  ul— second  book. 


to  make  a  rampart,  to  draw  up  the  army,  to  address  the 
men,  and  then  to  give  the  word.  In  that  matter  of 
oratory,  he  only  tells  them  to  remember  their  old 
valor.  The  enemy  was  so  close  upon  them,  and  so 
ready  for  fighting,  that  they  could  scarcely  put  on  their 
helmets  and  take  their  shields  out  of  their  cases.  So 
great  was  the  confusion  that  the  soldiers  could  not  get 
to  their  own  ranks,  but  had  to  fight  as  they  stood, 
under  any  flag  that  was  nearest  to  them.  There  were 
so  many  things  against  them,  and  especially  those  thick 
artificial  hedges,  which  prevented  them  even  from  see¬ 
ing,  that  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  fight  according 
to  any  method,  and  in  consequence  there  ere  vicissi¬ 
tudes  of  fortune.  One  is  driven  to  feel  that  on  this 
occasion  Caesar  was  caught  napping.  The  Nervii  did 
at  times  and  places  seem  to  be  getting  the  best  of  it. 
The  ninth  and  tenth  legions  pursue  one  tribe  into  a  river, 
and  then  they  have  to  fight  them  again,  and  drive  them 
out  of  the  river.  The  eleventh  and  eighth,  having  put  to 
flight  another  tribe,  are  attacked  on  the  very  river-banks. 
The  twelfth  and  the  seventh  have  their  hands  equally 
full,  when  Boduognatus,  the  Nervian  chief,  makes  his 
way  into  the  very  middle  of  the  Roman  camp.  So 
great  is  the  confusion  that  the  Treviri,  who  had  joined 
Caesar  on  this  occasion  as  allies,  although  reputed  the 
bravest  of  the  cavalry  of  Gaul,  run  away  home,  and 
declare  that  the  Romans  are  conquered.  Caesar,  how¬ 
ever,  comes  to  the  rescue,  and  saves  his  army  on  this 
occasion  by  personal  prowess.  When  he  saw  how  it 
was  going, — “rem  esse  in  angusto,” — how  the  thing 
had  got  itself  into  the  very  narrowest  neck  of  a  diffi¬ 
culty,  he  seizes  a  shield  from  a  common  soldier, — having 
come  there  himself  with  no  shield, — and  rushes  into  the 
fight.  When  the  soldiers  saw  him,  and  saw,  too,  that 


CHJSAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  47 


what  they  did  was  done  in  his  sight,  they  fought  anew, 
and  the  onslaught  of  the  enemy  was  checked. 

Perhaps  readers  will  wish  that  they  could  know  how 
much  of  all  this  is  exactly  true.  It  reads  as  though  it 
were  true.  We  cannot  in  these  days  understand  how 
one  brave  man  at  such  a  moment  should  be  so  much 
more  effective  than  another,  how  he  should  be  known 
personally  to  the  soldiers  of  an  army  so  large,  how  Caesar 
should  have  known  the  names  of  the  centurions, — for  he 
tells  us  that  he  addresses  them  by  name; — and  yet  it 
reads  like  truth;  and  the  reader  feels  that  as  Caesar 
would  hardly  condescend  to  boast,  so  neither  would  he 
be  constrained  by  any  modern  feeling  of  humility  from 
telling  any  truth  of  himself.  It  is  as  though  Minerva 
were  to  tell  us  of  some  descent  which  she  made 
among  the  Trojans.  The  Nervii  fight  on,  but  of  course 
they  are  driven  in  flight.  The  nation  is  all  but  de¬ 
stroyed,  so  that  the  very  name  can  but  hardly  remain; 
— so  at  least  we  are  told  here,  though  we  hear  of  them 
again  as  a  tribe  by  no  means  destroyed  or  powerless. 
When  out  of  six  hundred  senators  there  are  but  three 
senators  left,  when  from  sixty  thousand  fighting  men 
the  army  has  been  reduced  to  scarcely  five  hundred, 
Caesar  throws  the  mantle  of  his  mercy  over  the  sur¬ 
vivors.  He  allows  them  even  to  go  and  live  in  their 
own  homes,  and  forbids  their  neighbors  to  harass 
them.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Caesar  nearly  got 
the  worst  of  it  in  this  struggle,  and  we  may  surmise 
that  he  learned  a  lesson  which  was  of  service  to  him 
in  subsequent  campaigns. 

But  there  are  still  certain  Aduatici  to  be  disposed 
of  before  the  summer  is  over, — people  who  had  helped 
the  Nervii, — who  have  a  city  of  their  own,  and  who 


48  THE  WAR  IN’  a  A  TIL.— SECOND.  BOOK. 


live  somewhere  in  the  present  Namur  district.*  At 
first  they  fight  a  little  round  the  walls  of  their  town; 
hut  when  they  see  what  terrible  instruments  Caesar 
has,  by  means  of  which  to  get  at  them  over  their  very 
walls, — how  he  can  build  up  a  great  turret  at  a  distance, 
which,  at  that  distance,  is  ludicrous  to  them,  but  which 
he  brings  near  to  them,  so  that  it  overhangs  them,  from 
which  to  harass  them  with  arrows  and  stones,  and 
against  which,  so  high  is  it,  they  have  no  defence— 
then  they  send  out  and  beg  for  mercy.  Surely,  they 
say,  Caesar  and  the  Romans  must  have  more  than 
human  power.  They  will  give  up  everything,  if  only 
Caesar  out  of  his  mercy  will  leave  to  them  their  arms. 
They  are  always  at  war  with  all  their  neighbors;  and 
where  would  they  be  without  arms  ? 

Caesar  replies.  Merits  of  their  own  they  have  none. 
How  could  a  tribe  have  merits  against  which  Caesar 
was  at  war?  Nevertheless,  such  being  his  custom,  he 
will  admit  them  to  some  terms  of  grace  if  they  sur¬ 
render  before  his  battering-ram  has  touched  their 
walls.  But  as  for  their  arms,  surely  they  must  be 
joking  with  him.  Of  course  their  arm 3  must  be  sur¬ 
rendered.  What  he  had  done  for  the  Nervii  he  would 
do  for  them.  He  would  tell  their  neighbors  not  to 


*  These  people  were  the  descendants  of  those  Cimbri  who,  half 
a  century  before,  had  caused  such  woe  to  Rome !  The  Cimbri,  we 
are  told,  had  gone  forth  from  their  lands,  and  had  been  six  times 
victorious  over  Roman  armies,  taking  possession  of  “  our  Prov¬ 
ince,”  and  threatening  Italy  and  Rome.  The  whole  empire  of 
the  Republic  had  been  in  dangsr,  but  was  at  last  saved  by  the 
courage,  skill,  and  rapidity  of  Marius.  In  going  forth  from 
their  country  they  had  left  a  remnant  behind  with  such  of  their 
possessions  as  they  could  not  carry  with  them;  and  these 
Aduatici  were  the  children  and  grandchildren  of  that  remnant. 
Caesar  doubtless  remembered  it  all. 


CAESAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  49 


hurt  them.  They  agree,  and  throw  their  arms  into  the 
outside  ditch  of  the  town,  but  not  quite  all  their  arms, 
A  part, — a  third, — are  cunningly  kept  back;  and  when 
Caesar  enters  the  town,  they  who  have  kept  their  arms, 
and  others  unarmed,  try  to  escape  from  the  town.  They 
fight,  and  some  thousands  are  slain.  Others  are  driven 
back,  and  these  are  sold  for  slaves.  Who,  we  wonder, 
could  have  been  the  purchasers,  and  at  what  price  on 
that  day  was  a  man  to  be  bought  in  the  city  of  the 
Aduatici  ? 

Then  Caesar  learns  through  his  lieutenant,  young 
Crassus,  the  son  of  his  colleague  in  the  triumvirate, that 
all  the  Belgian  states,  from  the  Scheldt  to  the  Bay  of 
Biscay,  have  been  reduced  beneath  the  yoke  of  the 
Roman  people.  The  Germans,  too,  send  ambassadors 
to  him,  so  convinced  are  they  that  to  fight  against  him 
is  of  no  avail, — so  wonderful  an  idea  of  this  last  war 
has  pervaded  all  the  tribes  of  barbarians.  But  Caesar  is 
in  a  hurry,  and  can  hear  no  ambassadors  now.  He 
wants  to  get  into  Italy,  and  they  must  come  again  to 
him  next  summer. 

Fftr  all  which  glorious  doings  a  public  thanksgiving 
of  fifteen  days  is  decreed,  as  soon  as  the  news  is  heard 
in  Rome. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  HAUL. — CAESAR  SUBDUES 

✓ 

THE  WESTERN  TRIBES  OF  GAUL. — B.  C.  56. 

In  the  first  few  lines  of  the  third  book  we  learn  that 
Caesar  had  an  eye  not  only  for  conquest,  hut  for  the 
advantages  of  conquest  also.  When  he  went  into 
Italy  at  the  end  of  the  last  campaign,  he  sent  one 
Galba,  whose  descendant  became  emperor  after  Hero, 
with  the  twelfth  legion,  to  take  up  his  winter  quarters 
in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Rhone,  in  order  that  an 
easier  traffic  might  be  opened  to  traders  passing  over 
the  Alps  in  and  out  of  Northern  Italy.  In  seems  that 
the  passage  used  was  that  of  the  Great  St.  Bernard, and 
Galba  placed  himself  with  his  legion  at  that  junction 
of  the  valley  which  we  all  know  so  well  as  Martigny. 
Here,  however,  he  was  attacked  furiously  in  his  camp 
by  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley,  who  probably  objected 
to  being  dictated  to  as  to  the  amount  of  toll  to  be 
charged  upon  the  traveling  traders,  and  was  very  nearly 
destroyed.  The  Romans,  however,  at  last,  when  they 
had  neither  weapons  nor  food  left  for  maintaining  their 
camp,  resolved  to  cut  their  way  through  their  enemies. 
This  they  did  so  effectually  that  they  slaughtered  more 
than  ten  thousand  men,  and  the  other  twenty  thou¬ 
sand  of  Swiss  warriors  all  took  to  flight!  Nevertheless 


CTESAR  MAKES  LITTLE  OF  DIFFICULTIES.  51 


Galba  thought  it  as  well  to  leave  that  inhospitable 
region,  in  which  it  was  almost  impossible  to  find  food 
for  the  winter,  and  took  himself  down  the  valley  and 
along  the  lake  to  the  Roman  province.  He  made  his 
winter-quarters  among  the  Allobroges,  who  belonged  to 
the  province, — a  people,  living  just  south  of  the  present 
Lyons.  How  the  Allobroges  liked  it  we  are  not  told, 
but  we  know  that  they  were  then  very  faithful,  al¬ 
though  in  former  days  they  had  given  great  trouble. 
Their  position  made  faith  to  Rome  almost  a  necessity. 
Whether,  in  such  a  position,  Caesar’s  lieutenants  paid 
their  way,  and  bought  their  corn  at  market  price,  we 
do  not  know.  It  was  Caesar's  rule,  no  doubt,  to  make 
the  country  on  which  his  army  stood  support  his  army. 

When  the  number  of  men  whom  Caesar  took  with 
him  into  countries  hitherto  unknown  to  him  or  his 
army  is  considered,  and  the  apparently  reckless  au¬ 
dacity  with  which  he  did  so,  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  he  himself  says  very  little  about  his  difficulties. 
He  must  constantly  have  had  armies  for  which  to 
provide  twice  as  large  as  our  Crimean  army, — probably 
as  large  as  the  united  force  of  the  English  and  French 
in  the  Crimea;  and  he  certainly  could  not  bring  with 
him  what  he  wanted  in  ships.  The  road  from  Bala¬ 
clava  up  to  the  heights  over  Sebastopol,  we  know,  was 
very  bad;  but  it  was  short.  The  road  from  the  foot  of 
the  Alps  in  the  Roman  province  to  the  countries  with 
which  we  were  dealing  in  the  last  chapter  could  not, 
we  should  say,  have  been  very  good  two  thousand 
years  ago,  and  it  certainly  was  very  long; — nearly  a 
hundred  miles  for  Caesar  to  every  single  one  of  those 
that  were  so  terrible  to  us  in  the  Crimea.  Caesar, 
however,  carried  but  little  with  him  beyond  his  arms 
and  implements  of  war,  and  of  those  the  heaviest  he 


52  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— THIRD  BOOK. . 


no  doubt  made  as  be  went.  The  men  had  an  allow¬ 
ance  of  corn  per  day,  besides  so  much- pay.  We  are 
told  that  the  pay  before  Caesar’s  time  was  100  asses 
a  month  for  the  legionaries, — the  as  being  less  than  a 
penny,— and  that  this  was  doubled  by  Caesar.  We 
can  conceive  that  the  money  troubled  him  compara¬ 
tively  slightly,  but  that  the  finding  of  the  daily  corn  and 
forage  for  so  large  a  host  of  men  and  horses  must  have 
been  very  difficult.  He  speaks  of  the  difficulty  often, 
but  never  with  that  despair  which  was  felt  as  to  the 
roasting  of  our  coffee  in  the  Crimea.  We  hear  of  his 
waiting  till  forage  should  have  grown,  and  sometimes 
there  are  necessary  considerations  “  de  re  f  rumen  tari&,” 
— about  that  great  general  question  of  provisions;  but 
of  crushing  difficulties  very  little  is  said,  and  of  bad 
roads  not  a  word.  One  great  advantage  Caesar  certainly 
had  over  Lord  Raglan; — he  was  his  own  special  cor¬ 
respondent.  Coffee  his  men  certainly  did  not  get;  but 
if  their  corn  were  not  properly  roasted  for  them,  and  if, 
as  would  be  natural,  the  men  grumbled,  he  had  with 
him  no  licensed  collector  of  grumbles  to  make  public 
the  sufferings  of  his  men. 

And  now,  when  this  affair  of  Galba’s  had  been 
finished, — when  Caesar,  as  he  tells  us,  really  did  think 
that  all  Gaul  was  “pacatam,”  tranquilized,  or  at  least 
subdued, — the  Belgians  conquered,  the  Germans  driven 
off,  those  Swiss  fellows  cut  to  pieces  in  the  valley  of  the 
Rhone;  when  he  thought  that  he  might  make  a  short 
visit  into  that  other  province  of  his,  Illyricum,  so  that 
he  might  see  what  that  was  like, — he  is  told  that  another 
war  has  sprung  up  in  Gaul!  Young  Crassus,  with  that 
pecessity  which  of  course  was  on  him  of  providing 
winter  food  for  the  seventh  legion  which  he  had  been 
ordered  to  take  into  Aquitania,  has  been  obliged  to  send 


CAESAR  SUBDUES  THE  WESTERN  TRIBES.  53 


out  for  corn  into  the  neighboring  countries.  Of  course 
a  well-instructed  young  general,  such  as  was  Crassus, 
had  taken  hostages  before  he  sent  his  men  out  among 
strange  and  wild  barbarians.  But  in  spite  of  that,  the 
Yeneti,  a  maritime  people  of  ancient  Brittany,  just  in 
that  country  of  the  Morbihan  whither  we  now  go  to 
visit  the  works  of  the  Druids  at  Carnac  and  Locmariaker, 
absolutely  detained  his  two  ambassadors; — so  called 
afterwards,  though  in  his  first  mention  of  them  Caesar 
names  them  as  praefects  and  tribunes  of  the  soldiers. 
Yannes,  the  capitol  of  the  department  of  the  Morbihan, 
gives  us  a  trace  of  the  name  of  this  tribe.  The  Yeneti, 
who  were  powerful  in  ships,  did  not  see  why  they 
should  give  their  corn  to  Crassus.  Caesar,  when  he 
hears  that  ambassadors, — sacred  ambassadors, — have 
been  stopped,  is  filled  with  shame  and  indignation,  and 
hurries  off  himself  to  look  after  the  affair,  having,  as 
we  may  imagine, been  able  to  see  very  little  of  Illyricum. 

This  horror  of  Caesar  in  regard  to  his  ambassadors, — 
in  speaking  of  which  he  alludes  to  what  the  Gauls 
themselves  felt  when  they  came  to  understand  what  a 
thing  they  had  done  in  making  ambassadors  prisoners, 
— “  legatos,” — a  name  that  has  always  been  held  sacred 
and  inviolate  among  all  nations, — is  very  great,  and 
makes  him  feel  that  he  must  really  be  in  earnest.  We 
are  reminded  of  the  injunctions,  printed  in  Spanish, 
which  the  Spaniards  distributed  among  the  Indians  of 
the  continent,  in  the  countries  now  called  Yenezuela 
and  New  Granada,  explaining  to  the  people,  who  knew 
nothing  of  Spanish  or  of  printing,  how  they  were 
bound  to  obey  the  orders  of  a  distant  king,  who  had 
the  authority  of  a  more  distant  Pope,  who  again, — so 
they  claimed, — was  delegated  by  a  more  distant  God. 
The  pain  of  history  consists  in  the  injustice  of  the  wolf 


54  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— THIRD  BOOR. 


towards  the  lamb,  joined  to  the  conviction  that  thus, 
and  no  otherwise,  could  the  lamb  be  brought  to  better 
than  a  sheepish  mode  of  existence !  But  Caesar  was  in 
earnest.*  The  following  is  a  translation  of  the  tenth 
section  of  this  book;  “  There  were  these  difficulties  in 
carrying  on  the  war  which  we  have  above  shown.” — 
He  alludes  to  the  maritime  capacities  of  the  people 
whom  he  desires  to  conquer. — “Many  things,  never¬ 
theless,  urged  Caesar  on  to  this  war; — the  wrongs  of 
those  Roman  knights  who  had  been  detained,  rebel¬ 
lion  set  on  foot  after  an  agreed  surrender,” — that  any 
such  surrender  had  been  made  we  do  not  hear,  though 
we  do  hear,  incidentally,  that  Crassus  had  taken  hos¬ 
tages; — “a  falling  off  from  alliance  after  hostages  had 
been  given;  conspiracy  among  so  many  tribes;  and 
then  this  first  consideration,  that  if  this  side  of  the 
country  were  disregarded,  the  other  tribes  might  learn 
to  think  that  they  might  take  the  same  liberty.  Then, 
when  he  bethought  himself  that,  as  the  Gauls  were 
prone  to  rebellion,  and  were  quickly  and  easily  excited 
to  war,  and  that  all  men,  moreover,  are  fond  of  liberty 
and  hate  a  condition  of  subjection,  he  resolved  that  it 
would  be  well,  rather  than  that  other  states  should 
conspire,” — and  to  avoid  the  outbreak  on  behalf  of  free¬ 
dom  which  might  thus  probably  be  made, — “that  his 
army  should  be  divided,  and  scattered  about  more 

*  And  Caesar  was  no  doubt  indignant  as  well  as  earnest, 
though,  perhaps,  irrational  in  his  indignation.  We  know  how 
sacred  was  held  to  be  the  person  of  the  Roman  citizen,  and 
remember  Cicero’s  patriotic  declaration,  “Facinus  est  vinciri 
civem  Romanum, — scelus  verberari;”  and  again,  the  words 
which  Horace  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Regulus  when  he  asserts 
that  the  Roman  soldier  must  be  lost  for  ever  in  his  shame,  and 
useless,  “  Qui  lora  restrictis  lacertis  Sensit  iners  timuitque 
mortem.” 


CAESAR  SUBDUES  THE  WESTERN  TRIBES,  55 


widely.”  Treating  all  Gaul  as  a  chess-board,  he  sends 
round  to  provide  that  the  Treviri  should  be  kept  quiet. 
Readers  will  remember  how  far  Treves  is  distant  from 
the  extremities  of  Brittany.  The  Belgians  are  to  be 
looked  to,  lest  they  should  rise  and  come  and  help. 
The  Germans  are  to  be  prevented  from  crossing  the 
Rhine.  Labienus,  who,  during  the  Gallic  wars,  was 
Caesar’s  general  highest  in  trust,  is  to  see  to  all  this. 
Crassus  is  to  go  back  into  Aquitania  and  keep  the  south 
quiet.  Titurius  Sabinus,  destined  afterwards  to  a  sad 
end,  is  sent  with  three  legions, — eighteen  thousand  men, 

- — among  the  neighboring  tribes  of  Northern  Brittany 
and  Normandy.  “ Young”  Decimus  Brutus, — Caesar 
speaks  of  him  with  that  kind  affection  which  the  epithet 
conveys,  and  we  remember,  as  we  read,  that  this  Brutus 
appears  afterwards  in  history  as  one  of  Caesar’s  slayers, 
in  conjunction  with  his  greater  namesake, — young  Dec¬ 
imus  Brutus,  the  future  conspirator  in  Rome,  has  con¬ 
fided  to  him  the  fleet  which  is  to  destroy  these  much 
less  guilty  distant  conspirators,  and  Caesar  himself  takes 
the  command  of  his  own  legions  on  the  spot.  All  this 
is  told  in  fewer  words  than  are  here  used  in  describing 
the  telling,  and  the  reader  feels  that  he  has  to  do  with  a 
mighty  man,  whose  eyes  are  everywhere,  and  of  whom 
an  ordinary  enemy  would  certainly  say,  Surely  this  is 
no  man,  but  a  god. 

He  tells  us  how  great  was  the  effect  of  his  own 
presence  on  the  shore,  though  the  battle  was  carried 
on  under  young  Brutus  at  sea.  ‘‘What  remained  of 
the  conflict,”  he  says,  after  describing  their  manoeuvres, 
“depended  on  valor,  in  which  our  men  were  far  away 
the  superior;  and  this  was  more  especially  true  be¬ 
cause  the  affair  was  carried  on  so  plainly  in  the  sight 
of  Caesar  and  the  whole  army  that  no  brave  deed  could 


56  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— THIRD  BOOK. 

pass  unobserved.  For  all  the  hills  and  upper  lands, 
from  whence  the  view  down  upon  the  sea  was  close, 
were  covered  by  the  army.” 

Of  course  he  conquers  the  Yeneti  and  other  sea-going 
tribes,  even  on  their  own  element.  Whereupon  they 
give  themselves  and  all  their  belongings  up  to  Caesar. 
Caesar,  desirous  that  the  rights  of  ambassadors  shall 
hereafter  be  better  respected  among  barbarians,  deter¬ 
mines  that  he  must  use  a  little  severity.  “Gravius 
vindicandum  statuit;” — “he  resolved  that  the  otfence 
should  be  expiated  with  more  than  ordinary  punish¬ 
ment.”  Consequently,  he  kills  all  the  senate,  and  sells 
all  the  other  men  as  slaves!  The  pithy  brevity,  the 
unapolegetic  dignity  of  the  sentence,  as  he  pronounced 
it  and  tells  it  to  us,  is  heartrending,  but,  at  this  dis¬ 
tance  of  time,  delightful  also.  ‘  ‘  Itaque,  omni  senatu 
necato,  reliquos  sub  corona  vendidit.” — “therefore, 
all  the  senate  having  been  slaughtered,  he  sold  the 
other  citizens  with  chaplets  on  their  heads;” — it  being 
the  Roman  custom  so  to  mark  captives  in  war  intended 
for  sale.  We  can  see  him  as  he  waves  his  hand  and 
passes  on.  Surely  he  must  be  a  god ! 

His  generals  in  this  campaign  are  equally  success¬ 
ful.  One  Viridovix,  a  Gaul  up  in  the  Normandy 
country, — somewhere  about  Avranches  or  St.  Lo,  we 
may  imagine, — is  entrapped  into  a  fight,  and  destroyed 
with  his  army.  Aquitania  surrenders  herself  to  Cras- 
sus,  after  much  fighting,  and  gives  up  her  arms. 

Then  Caesar  reflects  that  the  Morini  and  the  Menapii 
had  as  yet  never  bowed  their  heads  to  him.  Boulogne 
and  Calais  stand  in  the  now  well-known  territory  of 
the  Morina,  but  the  Menapii  lie  a  long  way  off,  up 
among  the  mouths  of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Rhine, — the 
Low  Countries  of  modern  history, — an  uncomfortable 


CAESAR  SUBDUES  THE  WESTERN  TRIBES.  57 


people  then,  who  would  rush  into  their  woods  and 
marshes  after  a  spell  of  fighting,  and  who  seemed  to 
have  no  particular  homes  or  cities  that  could  he  attacked 
or  destroyed.  It  was  nearly  the  end  of  summer  just 
now,  and  the  distance  between,  let  us  say,  Yannes  in 
Brittany,  and  Breda,  or  even  Antwerp,  seems  to  us  to 
be  considerable,  when  we  remember  the  condition  of 
the  country,  and  the  size  of  Caesar’s  army.  But  he  had 
a  few  weeks  to  fill  up,  and  then  he  might  feel  that  all 
Gaul  had  been  “pacified.”  At  present  there  was  this 
haughty  little  northern  corner.  “  Omni  Gallia  pacata, 
Morini  Menapiique  superent;” — “  all  Gaul  having  been 
pacified,  the  Morini  and  Menapii  remained.”  He  was, 
morever,  no  doubt  beginning  to  reflect  that  from  the 
Morini  could  be  made  the  shortest  journey  into  that 
wild  Ultima  Thule  of  an  island  in  which  lived  the 
Britan ni.  Caesar  takes  advantage  of  the  few  weeks, 
and  attacks  these  uncomfortable  people.  When  they 
retreat  into  the  woods,  he  cuts  the  woods  down.  He 
does  cut  down  an  immense  quantity  of  wood,  but  the 
enemy  only  recede  into  thicker  and  bigger  woods. 
Bad  weather  comes  on,  and  the  soldiers  can  no  longer 
endure  life  in  their  skin  tents.  Let  us  fancy  these 
Italians  encountering  winter  in  un drained  Flanders, 
with  no  walls  or  roofs  to  protect  them,  and  ordered  to 
cut  down  interminable  woods!  Had  a  “Times ’’been 
written  and  filed,  instead  of  a  “  Commentary  ”  from 
the  hands  of  the  General-in-chief,  we  should  probably 
have  heard  of  a  good  deal  of  suffering.  As  it  is,  we  are 
only  told  that  Caesar  had  to  give  up  his  enterprise  for 
that  year.  He  therefore  burnt  all  their  villages,  laid 
waste  all  their  fields,  and  then  took  his  army  down  into 
a  more  comfortable  region  south  of  the  Seine,  and 
there  put  them  into  winter  quarters, — not  much  to  the 
comfort  of  the  people  there  residing. 


CHAPTER  Y 


FOURTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CL3ESAR  CROSSES 
THE  RHINE,  SLAUGHTERS  THE  GERMANS,  AND  GOES 
INTO  BRITAIN. — B.C.  55. 

In  the  next  year  certain  Germans,  Usipetes  and  others, 
crossed  the  Rhine  into  Gaul,  not  far  from  the  sea,  as 
Csesar  tells  us.  He  tells  us  again,  that  when  he  drove 
the  Germans  hack  over  the  river,  it  was  near  the 
confluence  of  the  Meuse  and  the  Rhine.  When  we 
remember  how  difficult  it  was  for  Csesar  to  obtain 
information,  we  must  acknowledge  that  his  geography 
as  to  the  passage  of  the  Rhine  out  to  the  sea,  and  of 
the  junction  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse  by  the  Waal, 
is  wonderfully  correct.  The  spot  indicated  as  that  at 
which  the  Germans  were  driven  into  the  river  would 
seem  to  be  near  Bommel  in  Holland,  where  the  Waal 
and  the  Meuse  join  their  waters,  at  the  head  of  the 
island  of  Bommel,  where  Fort  St.  Andre  stands,  or  stood.* 

*  Caesar  speaks  of  the  confluence  of  the  Rhine  and  the 
“  Mosa  ”  as  the  spot  at  which  he  drove  the  Germans  into  the 
river, — and  in  various  passages,  speaking  of  the  Mosa,  clearly 
means  the  Meuse.  It  appears,  however,  to  be  the  opinion  of 
English  scholars  who  have  studied  the  topography  of  Caesar’s 
campaigns  with  much  labor,  that  the  confluence  of  the  Moselle 
and  Rhine,  from  which  Coblentz  derives  its  name,  is  the  spot 
intended.  Napoleon,  who  has  hardly  made  himself  an  author- 


DRIVES  TEE  GERMANS  OUT  OF  GAUL.  59 


Those  wonderful  Suevi,  among-  whom  the  men 
alternately  fight  and  plough,  year  and  year  about, 
caring  more,  however,  for  cattle  than  they  do  for  corn, 
who  are  socialists  in  regard  to  land,  having  no  private 
property  in  their  fields, — who,  all  of  them,  from  their 
youth  upwards,  do  just  what  they  please, — large,  bony 
men,  who  wear,  even  in  these  cold  regions,  each  simply 
some  scanty  morsel  of  skin  covering,— who  bathe  in  rivers 
all  the  year  through,  who  deal  with  traders  only  to  sell 
the  spoils  of  war,  who  care  but  little  for  their  horses, 
and  ride,  when  they  do  ride,  without  saddles, — think¬ 
ing  nothing  of  men  to  whom  such  delicate  appendages 
are  necessary, — who  drink  no  wine,  and  will  have  no 
neighbors  near  them, — these  ferocious  Suevi  have  driven 
other  German  tribes  over  the  Rhine  into  Gaul.  Caesar, 
hearing  this,  is  filled  with  apprehension.  He  knows 
the  weakness  of  his  poor  friends  the  Gauls, — how  prone 
they  are  to  gossiping,  of  what  a  restless  temper.  It  is 
in  the  country  of  the  Menapii,  the  tribe  with  which  he 
did  not  quite  finish  his  little  affair  in  the  last  chapter, 
that  these  Germans  are  settling;  and  there  is  no  know¬ 
ing  what  trouble  the  intruders  may  give  him  if  he 
allows  them  to  make  themselves  at  home  on  that  side 
of  the  river.  So  he  hurries  off  to  give  help  to  the  poor 
Menapii. 

Of  course  there  is  a  sending  of  ambassadors.  The 
Germans  acknowledge  that  they  have  been  turned  out 
of  their  own  lands  by  their  brethren,  the  Suevi,  who 
are  better  men  than  they  are.  But  they  profess  that, 


ity  on  the  affairs  of  Caesar  generally,  but  who  is  thought  to  be 
an  authority  in  regard  to  topography,  holds  to  the  opinion  that 
the  site  in  Holland  is  intended  to  be  described.  Readers  who 
are  anxious  on  the  subject  can  choose  between  the  two;  but 
readers  who  are  not  anxious  will  probably  be  more  numerous. 


60  the  war  in  ga  ul.—fo  urtii  book. 


in  fighting,  the  Suevi,  and  the  Suevi  only,  are  their 
masters.  Not  even  the  immortal  gods  can  stand 
against  the  Suevi.  But  they  also  are  Germans,  and 
are  not  at  all  afraid  of  the  Romans.  But  in  the  prop 
osition  which  they  make  they  show  some  little, awe. 
Will  Caesar  allow  them  to  remain  where  they  are,  or  allot 
to  them  some  other  region  on  that  side  of  the  Rhine? 
Caesar  tells  them  that  they  may  go  and  live,  if  they 
please,  with  the  Ubii, — another  tribe  of  Germans  who 
occupy  the  Rhine  country,  probably  where  Cologne  now 
stands,  or  perhaps  a  little  north  of  it,  and  who  seem 
already  to  have  been  forced  over  the  Rhine, — they,  or 
some  of  them, — and  to  have  made  good  their  footing 
somewhere  in  the  region  in  which  Charlemagne  built 
his  church,  now  called  Aix-la-Chapelle.  There  they 
are,  Germans  still,  and  probably  are  so  because  these 
Ubii  made  good  their  footing.  The  Ubii  also  are  in 
trouble  with  the  Suevi;  and  if  these  intruders  will  go 
and  join  the  Ubii,  Caesar  will  make  it  all  straight  for 
them.  The  intruders  hesitate,  but  do  not  go,  and  at 
last  attack  Caesar’s  cavalry,  not  without  some  success. 
During  this  fight  there  is  double  treachery, — first  on  the 
part  of  the  Germans,  and  then  on  Caesar’s  part — which 

is  chieflv  memorable  for  the  attack  made  on  Caesar  in 

•/ 

Rome.  It  was  in  consequence  of  the  deceit  here 
practised  that  it  was  proposed  by  his  enemies  in  the 
city  that  he  should  be  given  up  by  the  Republic  to 
the  foe.  Had  any  such  decree  been  passed,  it  would 
not  have  been  easy  to  give  up  Caesar. 

The  Germans  are,  of  course,  beaten,  and  they  are 
driven  into  the  river  on  those  low  and  then  undrained 
regions  in  which  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse  and  the 
Waal  confuse  themselves  and  confuse  travelers; — 
either  here,  or  much  higher  up  the  river  at  Coblentz; 


DRIVES  THE  GERMANS  0  UT  OF  GA  TIL .  61 


but  the  reader  will  already  have  settled  that  question 
for  himself  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter.  Caesar 
speaks  of  these  Germans  as  though  they  were  all 
drowned, — men,  women,  and  children.  They  had 
brought  their  entire  families  with  them,  and,  when 
the  fighting  went  against  them,  with  their  entire 
families  they  fled  into  the  river.  Caesar  was  pursuing 
them  after  the  battle,  and  they  precipitated  themselves 
over  the  banks.  There,  overcome  by  fear,  fatigue,  and 
the  waters,  they  perished.  There  was  computed  to 
be  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  of  them  who  were 
destroyed;  but  the  Roman  army  was  safe  to  a  man.* 
Then  Caesar  made  up  his  mind  to  cross  the  river. 
It  seems  that  he  had  no  intention  of  extending  the 
empire  of  the  Republic  into  what  he  called  Germany, 
but  that  he  thought  it  necessary  to  frighten  the  Ger¬ 
mans.  The  cavalry  of  those  intruding  Usipetes  had, 
luckily  for  them,  been  absent,  foraging  over  the  river; 
and  he  now  sent  to  the  Sigambri,  among  whom  they 
had  taken  refuge,  desiring  that  these  horsemen  should 
be  given  up  to  him.  But  the  Sigambri  will  not  obey. 
The  Germans  seem  to  have  understood  that  Caesar  had 
Gaul  in  his  hands,  to  do  as  he  liked  with  it;  but  they 
grudged  his  interference  beyond  the  Rhine.  Caesar, 
however,  always  managed  to  have  a  set  of  friends 
among  his  enemies,  to  help  him  in  adjusting  his 
enmities.  We  have  heard  of  the  iEdui  in  Central 
Gaul,  and  of  the  Remi  in  the  north.  The  Ubii  were 
his  German  friends,  who  were  probably  at  this  time 
occupying  both  banks  of  the  river;  and  the  Ubii  ask 


*  “Hostium  numerus  capitum  CDXXX  millium  fuisset,”  from 
which  words  we  are  led  to  suppose  that  there  were  180,000  fight¬ 
ing  men,  besides  the  women  and  children. 


G2  TEE  WAR  IE  GA  UL.—FO  URTE  BOOK. 


him  just  to  come  over  and  frighten  their  neighbors. 
Caesar  resolves  upon  gratifiying  them.  And  as  it  is  not 
consistent  either  with  his  safety  or  with  his  dignity  to 
cross  the  river  in  boats,  he  determines  to  build  a  bridge. 

Is  there  a  schoolboy  in  England,  or  one  who  has 
been  a  schoolboy,  at  any  Caesar-reading  school,  who 
does  not  remember  those  memorable  words,  “  Tigna 
bina  sesquipedalia,”  with  which  Caesar  begins  his 
graphic  account  of  the  building  of  the  bridge?  When 
the  breadth  of  the  river  is  considered,  its  rapidity,  and 
the  difficulty  which  there  must  have  been  in  finding 
tools  and  materials  for  such  a  construction,  in  a  country 
so  wild  and  so  remote  from  Roman  civilization,  the 
creation  of  this  bridge  fills  us  with  admiration  for 
Caesar’s  spirit  and  capacity.  He  drove  down  piles 
into  the  bed  of  the  river,  two  and  two,  prone  against 
the  stream.  We  could  do  that  now,  though  hardly  as 
quick  as  Caesar  did  it;  but  we  should  want  coffer-dams 
and  steam-pumps,  patent  rammers,  and  a  clerk  of  the 
works.  He  explains  to  us  that  he  so  built  the  foun¬ 
dations  that  the  very  strength  of  the  stream  added  to 
their  strength  and  consistency.  In  ten  days  the  whole 
thing  was  done,  and  the  army  carried  over.  Caesar 
does  not  tell  us  at  what  suffering,  or  with  the  loss  of 
how  many  men.  It  is  the  simplicity  of  everything 
which  is  so  wonderful  in  these  Commentaries.  We 
have  read  of  works  constructed  by  modern  armies,  and 
of  works  which  modern  armies  could  not  construct. 
We  remember  the  road  up  from  Balaclava,  and  the 
railway  which  was  sent  out  from  England.  We  know 
too,  what  are  the  aids  and  appliances  with  which  science 
has  furnished  us.  But  yet  in  no  modern  warfare  do 
the  difficulties  seem  to  have  been  so  light,  so  little 
worthy  of  mention,  as  they  were  to  Caesar.  He  made 


CJESAR  INVADES  BRITAIN 


63 


his  bridge  and  took  over  his  army,  cavalry  and  all,  in 
ten  days.  There  must  have  been  difficulty  and  hard¬ 
ship,  and  the  drowning,  we  should  fear,  of  many  men; 
but  Caesar  says  nothing  of  all  this. 

Ambassadors  immediately  are  sent.  From  the  mo¬ 
ment  in  which  the  bridge  was  begun,  the  Sigambri  ran 
away  and  hid  themselves  in  the  woods.  Caesar  burns 
all  their  villages,  cuts  down  all  their  corn,  and  travels 
down  into  the  country  of  the  Ubii.  He  comforts  them ; 
and  tidings  of  his  approach  then  reach  those  terrible 
Suevi.  They  make  ready  for  war  on  a  grand  scale; 
but  Caesar,  reflecting  that  he  had  not  brought  his  army 
over  the  river  for  the  sake  of  fighting  the  Suevi,  and 
telling  us  that  he  had  already  done  enough  for  honor 
and  for  the  good  of  the  cause,  took  his  army  back 
after  eighteen  days  spent  in  the  journey,  and  destroyed 
his  bridge. 

Then  comes  a  passage  which  makes  a  Briton  vacil¬ 
late  between  shame  at  its  own  ancient  insignificance, 
and  anger  at  Caesar’s  misapprehension  of  his  ancient 
character.  There  were  left  of  the  fighting  season  after 
Caesar  came  back  across  the  Rhine  just  a  few  weeks; 
and  what  can  he  do  better  with  them  than  go  over  and 
conquer  Britannia?  This  first  record  of  an  invasion 
upon  us  comes  in  at  the  fag-end  of  a  chapter,  and  the 
invasion  was  made  simply  to  fill  up  the  summer!  No¬ 
body,  Caesar  tells  us,  seemed  to  know  anything  about 
the  island;  and  yet  it  was  the  fact  that  in  all  his  wars 
with  the  Gauls,  the  Gauls  were  helped  by  men  out  of 
Britain.  Before  he  will  face  the  danger  with  his  army 
he  sends  over  a  trusty  messenger,  to  look  about  and 
find  out  something  as  to  the  coasts  and  harbors.  The 
trusty  messenger  does  not  dare  to  disembark,  but  comes 
back  and  tells  Caesar  what  he  has  seen  from  his  ship. 


64  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FOURTH  BOOK. 


Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  has  got  together  a  great  fleet 
somewhere  in  the  Boulogne  and  Calais  country;  and, 
— so  he  says, — messengers  have  come  to  him  from 
Britain,  whither  rumors  of  his  purpose  have  already 
flown,  saying  that  they  will  submit  themselves  to  the 
Roman  Republic.  We  may  believe  just  as  much  of 
that  as  we  please.  But  he  clearly  thinks  less  of  the 
Boulogne  and  Calais  people  than  he  does  even  of  the 
Britons,  which  is  a  comfort  to  us.  When  these  people, 
— then  called  Morini, — came  to  him,  asking  pardon  for 
having  dared  to  oppose  him  once  before,  and  offering 
any  number  of  hostages,  and  saying  that  they  had 
been  led  on  by  bad  advice,  Caesar  admitted  them  into 
some  degree  of  grace;  not  wishing,  as  he  tells  us,  to  be 
kept  out  of  Britain  by  the  consideration  of  such  very 
small  affairs.  “  Neque  has  tantularum  rerum  occupa- 
tiones  sibi  Britanniae  anteponendas  judicabat.”  We 
hope  that  the  Boulogne  and  Calais  people  understand 
and  appreciate  the  phrase.  Having  taken  plenty  of 
hostages,  he  determines  to  trust  the  Boulogne  and 
Calais  people,  and  prepares  his  ships  for  passing  the 
Channel.  He  starts  nearly  at  the  third  watch, — about 
midnight,  we  may  presume.  A  portion  of  his  army, — 
the  cavalry, — encounter  some  little  delay,  such  as  has 
often  occurred  on  the  same  spot  since,  even  to  travel¬ 
ers  without  horses.  He  himself  got  over  to  the 
British  coast  at  about  the  fourth  hour.  This,  at  mid¬ 
summer,  would  have  been  about  quarter  past  eight. 
As  it  was  now  late  in  the  summer,  it  may  have  been 
nine  o’clock  in  the  morning  when  Csesar  found  him¬ 
self  under  the  cliffs  of  Kent,  and  saw  our  armed  ances¬ 
tors  standing  along  all  the  hills  ready  to  meet  him. 
He  stayed  at  anchor,  waiting  for  his  ships,  till  about 
two  p.  m.  His  cavalry  did  not  get  across  till  four  days 


CAESAR  INVADES  BRITAIN. 


65 


afterwards.  Having  given  his  orders,  and  found  a 
fitting  moment  and  a  fitting  spot,  Caesar  runs  his  ships 
up  upon  the  beach. 

Caesar  confesses  to  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  getting 
ashore.  When  we  know  how  very  hard  it  is  to  ac¬ 
complish  the  same  feat,  on  the  same  coast,  in  these 
days,  with  all  the  appliances  of  modern  science  to  aid 
us,  and,  as  we  must  presume,  with  no  real  intention 
on  the  part  of  the  Cantii,  or  men  of  Kent,  to  oppose 
our  landing,  we  can  quite  sympathise  with  Caesar. 
The  ships  were  so  big  that  they  could  not  be  brought 
into  very  shallow  water.  The  Roman  soldiers  were 
compelled  to  jump  into  the  sea,  heavily  armed,  and 
there  to  fight  with  the  waves  and  with  the  enemy. 
But  the  Britons  having  the  use  of  all  their  limbs, 
knowing  the  ground,  standing  either  on  the  shore  or 
just  running  into  the  shallows,  made  the  landing  un¬ 
easy  enough.  “  Nostri our  men, — says  Caesar,  with 
all  these  things  agaiast  them,  were  not  all  of  them  so 
alert  at  fighting  as  was  usual  with  them  on  dry  ground ; 
— at  which  no  one  can  be  surprised. 

Caesar  had  two  kinds  of  ships, — “naves  longae,” 
long  ships  for  carrying  soldiers;  and  “naves  oner- 
ariae,”  ships  for  carrying  burdens.  The  long  ships 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  such  ships  of  war  as  the 
Romans  generally  used  in  their  sea-fights,  but  were 
handier,  and  more  easily  worked,  than  the  trans¬ 
ports.  These  he  laid  broadside  to  the  shore,  and 
harassed  the  poor  natives  with  stones  and  arrows. 
Then  the  eagle-bearer  of  the  tenth  legion  jumped 
into  the  sea,  proclaiming  that  he  at  any  rate, 
would  do  his  duty.  Unless  they  wished  to  see  their 
eagle  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  ememy,  they  musi 
follow  him.  “Jump  down,  he  said,  my  fellow-sol- 


66  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FOURTH  BOOK. 


diers,  unless  you  wisli  to  betray  your  eagle  to  the 
enemy.  I  at  least  will  do  my  duty  to  the  Republic 
and  to  our  General.  When  he  had  said  this  with  a 
loud  voice,  he  threw  himself  out  of  the  ship  and 
advanced  the  eagle  against  the  enemy.”  Seeing  and 
hearing  this,  the  men  leaped  forth  freely,  from  that 
ship  and  from  others.  As  usual,  there  was  some  sharp 
fighting.  Pugnatum  est  ab  utrisque  acriter.”  It  is 
nearly  always  the  same  thing.  Csesar  throws  away 
none  of  his  glory  by  underrating  his  enemy.  But 
at  length  the  Britons  fly.  ‘  ‘  This  thing  only  was 
wanting  to. Caesar’s  usual  good  fortune,” — that  he  was 
deficient  in  cavalry  wherewith  to  ride  on  in  pursuit, 
and  “  take  the  island!  ”  Considering  how  very  short 
a  time  he  remains  in  the  island,  we  feel  that  his  com¬ 
plaint  against  fortune  is  hardly  well  founded.  But 
there  is  a  general  surrender,  and  a  claiming  of  hos¬ 
tages,  and  after  a  few  days  a  sparkle  of  new  hope  in 
the  breasts  of  the  Britons.  A  storm  arises  and  Caesar’s 
ships  are  so  knocked  about  that  he  does  not  know  how 
he  will  get  back  to  Gaul.  He  is  troubled  by  a  very 
high  tide,  not  understanding  the  nature  of  these  tides. 
As  he  had  only  intended  this  for  a  little  tentative 
trip, — a  mere  taste  of  a  future  war  with  Britain, — he 
had  brought  no  large  supply  of  corn  with  him.  He 
must  get  back,  by  hook  or  by  crook.  The  Britons,  see¬ 
ing  how  it  is  with  him,  think  that  they  can  destroy  him, 
and  make  an  attempt  to  do  so.  The  seventh  legion  is 
in  great  peril,  having  been  sent  out  to  find  corn,  but 
is  rescued.  Certain  of  his  ships, — those  which  had  been 
most  greviously  handled  by  the  storm, — he  breaks  up, 
in  order  that  he  may  mend  the  others  with  their  mate¬ 
rials.  When  we  think  how  long  it  takes  us  to  mend 
ships  having  dockyards,  and  patent  slips,  and  all 


CJESAR  INVADES. BRI1AIN. 


67 


things  ready,  this  is  most  marvelous  to  us.  But  he 
does  mend  his  ships,  and  while  so  •  doing  he  has  a 
second  fight  with  the  Britons,  and  again  repulses  them. 
There  is  a  burning  and  destroying  of  everything  far 
and  wide,  a  gathering  of  ambassadors  to  Caesar  asking 
for  terms,  a  demand  for  hostages, — a  double  number  of 
hostages  now,  whom  Caesar  desired  to  have  sent  over 
to  him  to  Gaul,  because  at  this  time  of  the  year  he  did 
not  choose  to  trust  them  to  ships  that  were  unsea¬ 
worthy;  and  he  himself,  with  all  his  army,  gets  back 
into  the  Boulogne  and  Calais  country.  Two  trans¬ 
ports  only  are  missing,  which  are  carried  somewhat 
lower  down  the  coast.  There  are  but  three  hundred 
men  in  these  transports,  and  these  the  Morini  of  those 
parts  threaten  to  kill  unless  they  will  give  up  their 
arms.  But  Caesar  sends  help,  and  even  these  three 
hundred  are  saved  from  disgrace.  There  is,  of  course, 
more  burning  of  houses  and  laying  waste  of  fields  be¬ 
cause  of  this  little  attempt,  and  then  Caesar  puts  his 
army  into  winter  quarters. 

What  would  have  been  the  difference  to  the  world 
if  the  Britons,  as  they  surely  might  have  done,  had 
destroyed  Caesar  and  every  Roman,  and  not  left  even  a 
ship  to  get  back  to  Gaul?  In  lieu  of  this  Caesar  would 
send  news  to  Rome  of  these  various  victories,  and  have 
a  public  thanksgiving  decreed, — on  this  occasion  for 
twenty  days. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IK  GAUL. — CESAR’S  SECOND 
INVASION  OF  BRITAIN. — THE  GAULS  RISE 
AGAINST  HIM. — B.C.  54. 

On  Ms  return  out  of  Britain,  Caesar,  as  usual,  went 
over  the  Alps  to  look  after  his  other  provinces,  and  to 
attend  to  his  business  in  Italy ;  but  he  was  determined 
to  make  another  raid  upon  the  island.  He  could  not 
yet  assume  that  he  had  “taken  it,”  and  therefore  he 
left  minute  instructions  with  his  generals  as  to  the 
building  of  more  ships,  and  the  repair  of  those  which 
had  been  so  nearly  destroyed.  He  sends  to  Spain,  he 
tells  us,  for  the  things  necessary  to  equip  his  ships. 
We  never  hear  of  any  difficulty  about  money.  We 
know  that  he  did  obtain  large  grants  from  Rome  for 
the  support  of  his  legions;  but  no  scruple  was  made 
in  making  war  maintain  war,  as  far  as  such  mainte¬ 
nance  could  be  obtained.  Caesar  personally  was  in  an 
extremity  of  debt  when  he  commenced  his  campaigns. 
He  had  borrowed  an  enormous  sum,  eight  hundred 
and  thirty  talents,  or  something  over  £200,000,  from 
Crassus, — who  was  specially  the  rich  Roman  of  those 
days, — before  he  could  take  charge  of  his  Spanish  prov¬ 
ince.  When  his  wars  were  over,  he  returned  to  Rome 
with  a  great  treasure ;  and  indeed  during  these  wars  in 


OJESARS  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN  69 


Gaul  he  expended  large  sums  in  bribing  Romans.  We 
may  suppose  that  he  found  hoards  among  the  barbarians, 
as  Lord  Clive  did  in  the  East  Indies.  Clive  contented 
himself  with  taking  some:  Caesar  probably  took  all. 

Having  given  the  order  about  his  ships,  he  settled  a 
little  matter  in  Illyricum,  taking  care  to  raise  some 
tribute  there  also.  He  allows  but  a  dozen  lines  for 
recording  this  winter  work,  and  then  tells  us  that  he 
hurried  back  to  his  army  and  his  ships.  His  command 
had  been  so  well  obeyed  in  regard  to  vessels,  that  he 
finds  ready,  of  that  special  sort  which  he  had  ordered 
with  one  bank  of  oars  only  on  each  side,  as  many  as 
six  hundred,  and  twenty-eight  of  the  larger  sort.  He 
gives  his  soldiers  very  great  credit  for  their  exertions, 
and  sends  his  fleet  to  the  Portus  Itius.  The  exact  spot 
which  Caesar  called  by  this  name  the  geographers  have 
not  identified,  but  it  is  supposed  to  be  between  Bou¬ 
logne  and  Calais.  It  may  probably  have  been  at  Wis- 
sant.  Having  seen  that  things  Were  thus  ready  for  a 
second  trip  into  Britain,  he  turns  round  and  hurries  off 
with  four  legions  and  eight  hundred  cavalry. — an  army 
of  25,000  men, — into  the  Treves  country.  There  is  a 
quarrel  going  on  there  between  two  chieftains  which  it 
is  well  that  he  should  settle, — somewhat  as  the  monkey 
settled  the  contest  about  the  oyster.  This,  however, 
is  a  mere  nothing  of  an  affair,  and  he  is  back  again 
among  his  ships  at  the  Portus  Itius  in  a  page  and  a 
half. 

He  resolves  upon  taking  five  legions  of  his  own 
soldiers  into  Britain,  and  two  thousand  mounted  Gauls. 
He  had  brought  together  four  thousand  of  these  horse¬ 
men,  collected  from  all  Gaul,  thier  chiefs  and  nobles, 
not  only  as  fighting  allies,  but  as  hostages  that  the 
tribes  should  not  rise  in  rebellion  while  his  back  was 


70  THE  WAR  IN  GA  VL.— FIFTH  BOOK 


turned.  These  he  divides,  taking  half  with  him,  and 
leaving  half  with  three  legions  of  his  own  men,  under 
Labienus,  in  the  Boulogne  country,  as  a  base  to  his 
army,  to  look  after  the  provisions,  and  to  see  that  he 
be  not  harassed  on  his  return.  There  is  a  little 
affair,  however,  with  one  of  the  Gaulish  chieftains, 
Dumnorix  the  iEduan,  who  ought  to  have  been  his 
fastest  friend.  Dumnorix  runs  away  with  all  the 
JEduan  horsemen.  Caesar,  however,  sends  after  him 
and  has  him  killed,  and  then  all  things  are  ready. 
He  starts  with  altogether  more  than  800  ships  at  sun¬ 
set,  and  comes  over  with  a  gentle  south-west  .wind. 
He  arrives  off  the  coast  of  Britain  at  about  noon,  but 
can  see  none  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  cliff.  He  im¬ 
agines  that  they  have  all  fled,  frightened  by  the  number 
of  his  ships.  Caesar  establishes  his  camp,  and  proceeds 
that  same  night  about  twelve  miles  into  the  country, 
— eleven  miles,  we  may  say,  as  our  mile  is  longer  than 
the  Roman, — and  there  he  finds  the  Britons.  There  is 
some  fighting,  after  which  Caesar  returns  and  fortifies 
his  camp.  Then  there  comes  a  storm  and  knocks  his 
ships  about  terribly, — although  he  had  found,  as  he 
thought,  a  nice  soft  place  for  them.  But  the  tempest 
is  very  violent,  and  they  are  torn  away  from  their 
anchors,  and  thrust  upon  the  shore,  and  dashed  against 
each  other  till  there  is  infinite  trouble.  He  is  obliged 
to  send  over  to  Labienus,  telling  him  to  build  more 
ships;  and  those  which  are  left  he  drags  up  over  the 
shore  to  his  camp,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  labor  re¬ 
quired  in  doing  it.  He  is  ten  days  at  this  work,  night 
and  day,  and  we  may  imagine  that  his  soldiers  had  not 
an  easy  time  of  it.  When  this  has  been  done,  he 
advances  again  into  the  country  after  the  enemy,  and 
finds  tfi&t  Cassivellaunus  is  in  command  of  the  united 


CESAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  0 F BRITAIN  71 


forces  of  the  different  tribes.  Cassivellaunus  comes 
from  the  other  side  of  the  Thames,  over  in  Middlesex  or 
Hertfordshire.  The  Britons  had  not  hitherto  lived  very 
peaceably  together,  but  now  they  agree  that  against  the 
Romans  they  will  act  in  union  under  Cassivellaunus. 

Caesar’s  description  of  the  island  is  very  interesting. 
The  interior  is  inhabited  by  natives, — or  rather  by  - 
“aborigines.”  Caesar  states  this  at  least  as  the  tra¬ 
dition  of  the  country.  But  the  maritime  parts  are 
held  by  Belgian  immigrants,  who,  for  the  most  part 
have  brought  with  them  from  the  Continent  the  names 
of  their  tribes.  The  population  is  great,  and  the  houses, 
built  very  like  the  houses  in  Gaul,  are  numerous  and 
very  thick  together.  The  Britons  have  a  great  deal  of 
cattle.  They  use  money,  having  either  copper  coin  or 
iron  rings  of  a  great  weight.  Tin  is  found  in  the 
middle  of  the  island,  and,  about  the  coast,  iron. 
But  the  quantity  of  iron  found  is  small.  Brass  they 
import.  They  have  the  same  timber  as  in  Gaul, — only 
they  have  neither  beech  nor  fir.  Hares  and  chickens 
and  geese  they  think  it  wrong  to  eat;  but  they  keep 
these  animals  as  pets.  The  climate,  on  the  whole,  is 
milder  than  in  Gaul.  The  island  is  triangular.  One 
corner,  that  of  Kent,  has  an  eastern  and  a  southern 
aspect.  This  southern  side  of  the  island  he  makes 
500  miles,  exceeding  the  truth  by  about  150  miles. 
Then  Caesar  becomes  a  little  hazy  in  his  geography, — 
telling  us  that  the  other  side,  meaning  the  western 
line  of  the  triangle,  where  Ireland  lies,  verges  towards 
Spain.  Ireland,  he  says,  is  half  the  size  of  Britain,  and 
about  the  same  distance  from  it  that  Britain  is  from 
Gaul.  In  the  middle  of  the  channel  dividing  Ireland 
from  Britain  there  is  an  island  called  Mona, — the  Isle 
of  Man.  There  are  also  some  other  islands  which  at 


72  THE  WAR  ffl  OA  UL.— FIFTH  BOOK  x 


midwinter  have  thirty  continuous  days  of  night.  Here 
Caesar  becomes  not  only  hazy  but  mythic.  But  he 
explains  that  he  has  seen  nothing  of  this  himself, 
although  he  has  ascertained,  by  scientific  measurement, 
that  the  nights  in  Britain  are  shorter  than  on  the  Con¬ 
tinent.  Of  course  the  nights  are  shorter  with  us  in 
summer  than  they  are  in  Italy,  and  longer  in  winter. 
The  western  coast  he  makes  out  to  be  700  miles  long; 
in  saying  which  he  is  nearly  100  miles  over  the  mark. 
The  third  side  he  describes  as  looking  towards  the 
north.  He  means  the  eastern  coast.  This  he  calls 
800  miles  long,  and  exaggerates  our  territories  by  more 
than  200  miles.  The  marvel,  however,  is  that  he  should 
be  so  near  the  truth.  The  men  of  Kent  are  the  most 
civilized :  indeed  they  are  almost  as  good  as  Gauls  in 
this  respect!  What  changes  does  not  time  make  in 
the  comparative  merits  of  countries!  The  men  in  the 
interior  live  on  flesh  and  milk,  and  do  not  care  for  corn. 
They  wear  skin  clothing.  They  make  themselves  hor¬ 
rible  with  woad,  and  go  about  with  very  long  hair. 
They  shave  close,  except  the  head  and  upper  lip. 
Then  comes  the  worst  habit  of  all; — ten  or  a  dozen 
men  have  their  wives  in  common  between  them. 

We  have  a  very  vivid  and  by  no  means  unflattering 
account  of  the  singular  agility  of  our  ancestors  in  their 
mode  of  fighting  from  their  chariots.  “This,”  says 
Csesar,  ‘  ‘  is  the  nature  of  their  chariot-fighting.  They 
first  drive  rapidly  about  the  battle-field, — “per  omnes 
partes,” — and  throw  their  darts,  and  frequently  dis¬ 
order  the  ranks  by  the  very  terror  occasioned  by  the 
horses  and  by  the  noise  of  the  wheels;  and  when  they 
have  made  their  way  through  the  bodies  of  the  cavalry, 
they  jump  down  and  fight  on  foot.  Then  the  charioteers 
go  a  little  out  of  the  battle,  and  so  place  their  chariots 


CJEBAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN.  73 


that  they  may  have  a  ready  mode  of  returning  should 
their  friends  he  pressed  by  the  number  of  their  enemies. 
Thus  they  unite  the  rapidity  of  cavalry  and  the  stabil¬ 
ity  of  infantry,  and  so  effective  do  they  become  by  daily 
use  and  practice,  that  they  are  accustomed  to  keep  their 
horses,  excited  as  they  are,  on  their  legs  on  steep  and 
precipitous  ground,  and  to  manage  and  turn  them  very 
quickly,  and  to  run  along  the  pole  and  stand  upon  the 
yoke,” — by  which  the  horses  were  held  together  at  the 
collars,— “  and  again  with  the  greatest  rapidity  to  re¬ 
turn  to  the  chariot.”*  All  which  is  very  wonderful. 

Of  course  there  is  a  great  deal  of  fighting,  and  the 
Britons  soon  learn  by  experience  to  avoid  general 
engagements  and  maintain  guerrilla  actions.  Caesar  by 
degrees  makes  his  way  to  the  Thames,  and  with  great 
difficulty  gets 'his  army  over  it.  He  can  only  do  this 
at  one  place  and  that  badly.  The  site  of  this  ford  he 
does  not  describe  to  us.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been 
near  the  place  which  we  now  know  as  Sunbury.  He 
does  tell  us  that  his  men  were  so  deep  in  the  water 
that  their  heads  only  were  above  the  stream.  But 
even  thus  they  were  so  impetuous  in  their  onslaught, 
that  the  Britons  would  not  wait  for  them  on  the 

*  All  well-instructed  modern  Britons  have  learned  from  the 
old  authorities  that  the  Briton  war-chariots  were  furnished  with 
scythes  attached  to  the  axles,— -from  Pomponius  Mela,  the  Roman 
geographer,  and  from  Mrs.  Markham,  among  others.  And 
Eugene  Sue,  in  his  novel  translated  into  English  under  the  name 
of  the  4  Rival  Races,’  explains  how  the  Bretons  on  the  other  side 
of  the  water,  in  the  Morbihan,  used  these  scythes:  and  how, 
before  a  battle  with  Caesar’s  legions,  the  wives  of  the  warriors 
arranged  the  straps  so  that  the  scythes  might  be  worked  from 
the  chariot  like  oars  from  a  boat.  But  Caesar  says  nothing  of 
such  scythes,  and  surely  he  would  have  done  so  had  he  seen  them. 
The  reader  must  choose  between  Caesar’s  silence  and  the  author¬ 
ity  of  Pomponius  Mela,  Mrs.  Markham,  and  Eugene  Sue. 


74  TEE  WAR  IE  GA  UL — FIFTH  ROOK. 


opposite  bank,  but  ran  away.  Soon  there  come 
unconditional  surrender,  and  hostages,  and  promises 
of  tribute.  Cassivellaunus,  who  is  himself  but  a 
usurper,  and  therefore  has  many  enemies  at  home, 
endeavors  to  make  himself  secure  in  a  strong  place  or 
town,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  on  or  near  the  site 
of  our  St.  Albans.  Caesar,  however,  explains  that  the 
poor  Britons  give  the  name  of  a  town, — “oppidum,” 
— to  a  spot  in  which  they  have  merely  surrounded 
some  thick  woods  with  a  ditch  and  rampart.  Caesar, 
of  course,  drives  them  out  of  their  woodland  fortress, 
and  then  there  quickly  follows  another  surrender,  more 
hostages,  and  the  demand  for  tribute.  Caesar  leaves 
his  orders  behind  him,  as  though  to  speak  were  to  be 
obeyed.  One  Mandubratius,  and  not  Cassivellaunus 
is  to  be  the  future  king  in  Middlesex  and  Hertford¬ 
shire, — that  is,  over  the  Trinobantes  who  live  there. 
He  fixes  the  amount  of  tribute  to  be  sent  annually  by 
the  Britons  to  Rome;  and  he  especially  leaves  orders 
that  Cassivellaunus  shall  do  no  mischief  to  the  young 
Mandubratius.  Then  he  crosses  back  into  Gaul  at  two 
trips, — his  ships  taking  half  the  army  first  and  coming 
back  for  the  other  half ;  and  he  piously  observes  that 
though  he  had  lost  many  ships  when  they  were  com¬ 
paratively  empty,  hardly  one  had  been  destroyed  while 
his  soldiers  were  in  them. 

So  was  ended  Caesar’s  second  and  last  invasion  of 
Britain.  That  he  had  reduced  Britain  as  he  had  re¬ 
duced  Gaul  he  certainly  could  not  boast; — though 
Quintus  Cicero  had  written  to  his  brother  to  say  that 
Britannia  was, — “confecta,” — finished.  Though  he 
had  twice  landed  his  army  under  the  white  cliffs,  and 
twice  taken  it  away  with  comparative  security,  he  had 
on  both  occasions  been  made  to  feel  how  terribly  strong 


CAESAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN  75 


an  ally  to  the  Britons  was  that  channel  which  divided 
them  from  the  Continent.  The  reader  is  made  to  feel 
that  on  both  occasions  the  existence  of  his  army  and  of 
himself  is  in  the  greatest  peril.  Csesar’s  idea  in  attack¬ 
ing  Britain  was  probably  rather  that  of  making  the 
Gauls  believe  that  his  power  could  reach  even  beyond 
them,— could  extend  itself  all  round  them,  even  into 
distant  islands, — than  of  absolutely  establishing  the 
Roman  dominion  beyond  that  distant  sea.  The  Bri¬ 
tons  had  helped  the  Gauls  in  their  wars  with  him,  and 
it  was  necessary  that  he  should  punish  any  who  pre¬ 
sumed  to  give  such  help.  Whether  the  orders  which 
he  left  behind  him  were  obeyed  we  do  not  know; 
but  we  may  imagine  that  the  tribute  exacted  was  not 
sent  to  Rome  with  great  punctuality.  In  fact,  Caesar 
invaded  the  island  twice,  but  did  not  reduce  it. 

On  his  return  to  Gaul,  nearly  at  the  close  of  the 
summer,  he  found  himself  obliged  to  distribute  his 
army  about  the  country  because  of  a  great  scarcity  of 
provisions.  There  had  been  a  drought,  and  the  crops 
had  failed.  Hitherto  he  had  kept  his  army  together 
during  the  winter;  now  he  was  obliged  to  divide  his 
legions,  placing  one  with  one  tribe,  and  another,  with 
another.  A  legion  and  a  half  he  stations  under  two  of 
his  generals,  L.  Titurius  Sabinus,  and  L.  Aurunculeius 
Cotta,  among  the  Eburones,  who  live  on  the  banks  of  the 
Meuse  in  the  Liege  and  Namur  country, — a  very  stout 
people,  who  are  still  much  averse  to  the  dominion  of 
Rome.  In  this  way  he  thought  he  might  best  get  over 
that  difficulty  as  to  the  scarcity  of  provisions;  but  yet 
he  so  well  understood  the  danger  of  separating  his 
army,  that  he  is  careful  to  tell  us  that,  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  one  legion  which  he  had  stationed  in  a  very 
quiet  country, — among  the  Essui,  where  Alengon  now 


76  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— FIFTH  BOOK 


stands, — they  were  all  within  a  hundred  miles  of  each 
other.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  precaution,  there 
now  fell  upon  Caesar  the  greatest  calamity  which  he 
had  ever  yet  suffered  in  war. 

During  all  these  campaigns,  the  desire  of  the  Gauls 
to  free  themselves  from  the  power  and  the  tyranny  of 
Rome  never  ceased;  nor  did  their  intention  to  do  so 
ever  fade  away.  Caesar  must  have  been  to  them  as  a 
venomous  blight,  or  some  evil  divinity  sent  to  afflict 
them  for  causes  which  they  could  not  understand. 
There  were  tribes  who  truckled  to  him,  but  he  had  no 
real  friends  among  them.  If  any  Gauls  could  have 
loved  him,  the  iEdui  should  have  done  so;  but  that 
Dumnorix,  the  aEduan,  who  ran  away  with  the  horse¬ 
men  of  his  tribe  when  he  was  wanted  to  help  in  the 
invasion  of  Britain,  had,  before  he  was  killed,  tried  to 
defend  himself,  asserting  vociferously  that  he  was  a 
free  man  and  belonging  to  a  free  state.  He  had  failed 
to  understand  that,  in  being  admitted  to  the  alliance 
of  Caesar,  he  was  bound  to  obey  Caesar.  Caesar  speaks 
of  it  all  with  his  godlike  simplicity,  as  though  he  saw 
nothing  ungodlike  in  the  work  he  was  doing.  There 
was  no  touch  of  remorse  in  him,  as  he  ordered  men  to 
be  slaughtered  and  villages  to  be  burned.  He  was 
able  to  look  at  those  things  as  trifles, — as  parts  of  a  great 
whole.  He  felt  no  more  than  does  the  gentleman  who 
sends  the  sheep  out  of  his  park  to  be  slaughtered  at 
the  appointed  time.  When  he  seems  to  be  most  cruel, 
it  is  for  the  sake  of  example, — that  some  politic  result 
may  follow, — that  Gauls  may  know ,  and  Italians  know 
also,  that  they  must  bow  the  knee  to  Caesar.  But  the 
heart  of  the  reader  is  made  to  bleed  as  he  sees  the 
unavailing  struggles  of  the  tribes.  One  does  not  spe¬ 
cially  love  the  iEdui;  but  Dumnorix  protesting  that 


HATRED  OF  THE  OA  ULS  TOWARDS  CAESAR.  77 


he  will  not  return,  that  he  is  a  free  man,  of  a  free 
state,  and  then  being  killed,  is  a  man  to  be  loved. 
Among  the  Carnutes,  where  Chartres  now  stands, 
Caesar  has  set  up  a  pet  king,  one  Tasgetius ;  but  when 
Caesar  is  away  in  Britain,  the  Carnutes  kill  Tasgetius. 
They  will  have  no  pet  of  Caesar’s.  And  now  the  stont 
Eburones,  who  have  two  kings  of  their  own  over  them, 
Ambiorix  and  Cati  volcus, understanding  thatCaesar’s  dif¬ 
ficulty  is  their  opportunity,  attack  the  Roman  camp,  with 
its  legion  and  a  half  of  men  under  Titurius  and  Cotta. 

Ambiorix,  the  chieftain,  is  very  crafty.  He  persuades 
the  Roman  generals  to  send  ambassadors  to  him,  and 
to  these  he  tells  his  story.  He  himself,  Ambiorix,  loves 
Caesar  beyond  all  things.  Has  not  Caesar  done  him 
great  kindnesses?  He  would  not  willingly  lift  a  hand 
against  Caesar,  but  he  cannot  control  his  state.  The 
facts,  however,  are  thus;  an  enormous  body  of  Ger¬ 
mans  has  crossed  the  Rhine,  and  is  hurrying  on  to 
destroy  that  Roman  camp ;  and  it  certainly  will  be  de¬ 
stroyed,  so  great  is  the  number  of  the  Germans.  Thus 
says  Ambiorix;  and  then  suggests  whether  it  would 
not  be  well  that  Titurius  and  Cotta  with  their  nine  or 
ten  thousand  men, — a  mere  handful  of  men  against  all 
these  Germans  who  are  already  over  the  Rhine;— would 
it  not  be  well  that  the  Romans  should  go  and  join 
some  of  their  brethren,  either  the  legion  that  is  among 
the  Nervii  to  the  east,  under  Quintus  Cicero,  the 
brother  of  the  great  orator — or  that  other  legion  which 
Labienus  has,  a  little  to  the  south,  on  the  borders  of 
the  Remi  and  Treviri?  And  in  regard  to  a  good  turn 
on  his  own  part,  so  great  is  the  love  and  veneration 
which  he,  Ambiorix,  feels  for  Caesar,  that  he  is  quite 
ready  to  see  the  Romans  safe  through  the  territories  of 
the  Eburones.  He  begs  Titurius  and  Cotta  to  think 


78  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIFTH  BOOK. 


of  this,  and  to  allow  him  to  aid  them  in  their  escape 
while  escape  is  possible.  The  two  Roman  generals  do 
think  of  it.  Titurius  thinks  that  it  will  be  well  to  take 
the  advice  of  Ambiorix.  Cotta,  and  with  him  many 
of  the  tribunes  and  centurions  of  the  soldiers,  think 
that  they  should  not  stir  without  Caesar’s  orders; — 
think  also  that  there  is  nothing  ba«er  or  more  foolish 
in  warfare  than  to  act  on  advice  given  by  an  enemy. 
Titurius,  however,  is  clear  for  going,  and  Cotta,  after 
much  argument  and  some  invective,  gives  way.  Early 
on  the  next  morning  they  all  leave  their  camp,  taking 
with  them  their  baggage,  and  marching  forth  as  though 
through  a  friendly  country, — apparently  with  belief  in 
the  profferd  friendship  of  Ambiorix.  The  Eburones 
had  of  course  prepared  an  ambush,  and  the  Roman 
army  is  attacked  both  behind  and  before,  and  is  thrown 
into  utter  confusion. 

The  legion,  or  legion  and  a  half,  with  its  two  com¬ 
manders,  is  altogether  destroyed.  Titurius  goes  out 
from  his  ranks  to  me3t  Ambiorix,  and  pray  for  peace. 
He  is  told  to  throw  away  his  arms,  and  submitting  to 
the  disgrace,  casts  them  down.  Then,  while  Ambiorix 
is  making  a  long  speech,  the  Roman  general  is  sur¬ 
rounded  and  slaughtered.  Cotta  is  killed  fighting; 
as  also  are  more  than  half  the  soldiers.  The  rest  get 
back  into  the  camp  at  night,  and  then,  desparing  of 
any  safety,  overwhelmed  with  disgrace,  conscious  that 
there  is  no  place  for  hope,  they  destroy  themselves. 
Only  a  few  have  escaped  during  the  fighting  to  tell  the 
tale  in  the  camp  of  Labienus. 

As  a  rule  the  reader’s  sympathies  are  with  the  Gauls; 
but  we  cannot  help  feeling  a  certain  regret  that  a 
Roman  legion  should  have  thus  been  wiled  on  to  de¬ 
struction  through  the  weakness  of  its  general.  If 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  AMBIORIX. 


79 


Titurius  could  have  been  made  to  suffer  alone  we  should 
bear  it  better.  When  we  are  told  how  the  gallant 
eagle-bearer,  Petrosidius,  throws  his  eagle  into  the  ram¬ 
part,  and  then  dies  fighting  before  the  camp,  we  wish 
that  Ambiorix  had  been  less  successful.  Of  this,  how¬ 
ever,  we  feel  quite  certain,  that  there  will  come  a  day, 
and  that  soon,  in  which  Caesar  will  exact  punishment. 

Having  done  so  much,  Ambiorix  and  the  Eburones 
do  not  desist.  Now,  if  ever,  after  so  great  a  disgrace, 
and  with  legions  still  scattered,  may  Caesar  be  worsted. 
Q.  Cicero  is  with  his  legion  among  the  Nervii,  and 
thither  Ambiorix  goes.  The  Nervii  are  quite  ready, 
and  Cicero  is  attacked  in  his  camp.  And  here,  too, 
for  a  long  while  it  goes  very  badly  with  the  Romans ; — 
so  badly  that  Cicero  is  hardly  able  to  hold  his  ramparts 
against  the  attacks  made  upon  them  by  the  barbarians. 
Red-hot  balls  of  clay  and  hot  arrows  are  thrown  into 
the  camp,  and  there  is  a  fire.  The  messengers  sent  to 
Caesar  for  help  are  slain  on  the  road,  and  the  Romans 
begin  to  think  that  there  is  hardly  a  chance  for  them 
of  escape.  Unless  Caesar  be  with  them  they  are  not  safe. 
All  their  power,  their  prestige,  their  certainty  of  con¬ 
quest  lies  in  Caesar.  Cicero  behaves  like  a  prudent 
and  valiant  man;  but  unless  he  had  at  last  succeeded 
in  getting  a  Gaulish  slave  to  take  a  letter  concealed  in 
u  dart  to  Caesar,  the  enemy  would  have  destroyed  him. 

There  is  a  little  episode  of  two  Roman  centurions, 
Pulfius  and  Yarenus,  who  were  always  quarreling  as  to 
which  was  the  better  man  of  the  two.  Pulfius  with 
much  bravado  rushes  out  among  the  enemy,  and 
Yarenus  follows  him.  Pulfius  gets  into  trouble,  and 
Yarenus  rescues  him.  Then  Yarenus  is  in  a  difficulty, 
and  Pulfius  comes  to  his  assistance.  According  to  all 
chances  of  war,  both  should  have  been  killed;  but 


80  tee  war  IN  GAUL.— fifth  book ; 


both  get  back  safe  into  the  camp; — and  nobody  knows 
from  that  day  to  this  which  was  the  better  man. 
Caesar,  of  course,  hastens  to  the  assistance  of  his  lieu¬ 
tenant,  having  sent  word  of  his  coming  by  a  letter  fas¬ 
tened  to  another  dart,  which,  however,  hardly  reaches 
Cicoro  in  time  to  comfort  him  before  he  sees  the  fires 
by  which  the  coming  legion  wasted  the  country  along 
their  line  of  march.  Then  there  is  more  fighting 
Caesar  conquers  and  Q.  Cicero  is  rescued  from  his  very 
disagreeable  position.  Labienus  has  also  been  in  diffi¬ 
culty,  stationed,  as  we  remember,  on  the  borders  of  the 
Treviri.  The  Treviri  were  quite  as  eager  to  attack  him 
sa  the  Eburones  and  Nervii  to  destroy  the  legions  left 
in  their  territories.  But  before  the  attack  is  made,  the 
news  of  Caesar’s  victory,  traveling  with  wonderful 
speed,  is  heard  of  in  those  parts,  and  the  Treviri  think 
it  best  to  leave  Labienus  alone. 

But  Caesar  has  perceived  that,  although  he  has  so 
often  boasted  that  all  Gaul  was  at  last  at  peace,  all 
Gaul  is  prepared  to  carry  on  the  war  against  him.  It 
is  during  this  winter  that  he  seems  to  realize  a  convic¬ 
tion  that  his  presence  in  the  country  is  not  popular  with 
the  Gauls  in  general,  and  that  he  has  still  much  to  do 
before  he  can  make  them  understand  that  they  are  not 
free  men,  belonging  to  free  states.  The  opposition  to 
him  has  become  so  general  that  he  himself  determines 
to  remain  in  Gaul  all  the  winter ;  and  even  after  telling 
us  of  the  destruction  of  Indutiomarus,  the  chief  of  the 
Treviri,  by  Labienus,  he  can  only  boast  that — “  Caesar 
had,  after  that  was  done,  Gaul  a  little  quieter  ” — a  little 
more  like  a  subject  country  bound  hand  and  foot — than 
it  was  before.  During  this  year  Caesar’s  proconsular 
power  over  his  provinces  was  extended  for  a  second 
period  of  five  years. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

SIXTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CAESAR  PURSUES 
AMBIORIX. — TIIE  MANNERS  OF  THE  GAULS  AND  OF 
THE  GERMANS  ARE  CONTRASTED. — B.  C.  53. 

CiESAR  begins  the  next  campaign  before  the  winter  is 
over,  having,  as  we  have  seen,  been  forced  to  continue 
the  last  long  after  the  winter  had  commenced.  The 
Gauls  were  learning  to  unite  themselves,  and  things 
were  becoming  very  serious  with  him.  One  Roman 
army,  with  probably  ten  thousand  men,  had  been  abso¬ 
lutely  destroyed,  with  its  generals  Titurius,  Sabinus  and 
Aurunculeius  Cotta.  Another  under  Quintus  Cicero 
would  have  suffered  the  same  fate,  but  for  Caesar’s  happy 
intervention.  A  third  under  Labienus  had  been  attacked. 
All  Gaul  had  been  under  arms,  or  thinking  of  arms,  in  the 
autumn ;  and  though  Caesar  had  been  able  to  report  at  the 
end  of  the  campaign  that  Gaul, — his  Gaul,  as  he  intended 
that  it  should  be, — was  a  little  quieter,  nevertheless  he 
understood  well  that  he  still  had  his  work  to  do  before  he 
could  enter  upon  possession.  He  had  already  been  the 
master  of  eight  legions  in  Gaul,  containing  48,000  foot- 
soldiers,  levied  on  the  Italian  side  of  the  Alps.  He 
had  added  to  this  a  large  body  of  Gaulish  cavalry  and 
light  infantry,  over  and  above  his  eight  legions.  He 
had  now  lost  an  entire  legion  and  a  half,  besides 


82  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.—. SIXTH  BOOK. 


the  gaps  which  mast  haye  been  made  in  Britain, 
and  'by  the  loss  of  those  who  had  fallen  when  attacked 
under  Cicero  by  the  Nervii.  But  he  would  show  the 
Gauls  that  when  so  treated  he  could  begin  again,  not 
only  with  renewed  but  with  increased  force.  He  would 
astound  them  by  his  display  of  Roman  power,  “think¬ 
ing  that,  for  the  future,  it  would  greatly  affect  the  opin¬ 
ion  of  Gaul  that  the  power  of  Italy  should  be  seen  to  be 
so  great  that,  if  any  reverse  in  war  were  suffered,  not 
only  could  the  injury  be  cured  in  a  short  time,  but 
that  the  loss  could  be  repaired  even  by  increased 
forces.”  He  not  only  levies  fresh  troops,  but  borrows 
a  legion  which  Pompey  commands  outside  the  walls 
of  Rome.  He  tells  us  that  Pompey  yields  his  legion 
to  the  “  Republic  and  to  Friendship.”  The  Triumvi¬ 
rate  wTas  still  existing,  and  Caesar’s  great  colleague 
probably  felt  that  he  had  no  alternative.  In  this  way 
Caesar  not  only  re-established  the  legion  which  had 
been  annihilated,  but  completes  the  others,  and  takes 
the  field  with  two  new  legions  added  to  his  army.  He 
probably  now  had  as  many  as  eighty  thousand  men 
under  his  command. 

He  first  makes  a  raid  against  our  old  friends  the 
Nervii,  who  had  nearly  conquered  Cicero  before 
Christmas,  and  who  were  already  conspiring  again 
with  certain  German  and  neighboring  Belgian  tribes. 
The  reader  will  perhaps  remember  that  in  the  second 
book  this  tribe  was  said  to  have  been  so  utterly  de¬ 
stroyed  that  hardly  their  name  remained.  That,  no 
doubt,  was  Caesar’s  belief  after  the  great  slaughter. 
There  had  been,  however,  enough  of  them  left  nearly 
to  destroy  Q.  Cicero  and  his  legion.  Then  Caesar  goes 
to  Paris, — Lutetia  Parisiorum,  of  which  we  now  hear 
for  the  first  time, — and,  with  the  help  of  his  friends 


CAESAR  RECRUITS  IIIS  ARMY. 


83 


the  iEdui  and  the  Rerni,  makes  a  peace  with  the 
centre  tribes  of  Gaul,  the  Senones  and  Carnutes. 
Then  he  resolves  upon  attacking  Ambiorix  with  all 
his  heart  and  soul.  Ambiorix  had  destroyed  his 
legion  aud  killed  his  two  generals,  and  against 
Ambiorix  he  must  put  forth  all  his  force.  It  is 
said  that  when  Caesar  first  heard  of  that  misfortune 
he  swore  that  he  would  not  cut  his  hair  or  shave 
himself  till  he  was  avenged.  But  he  feels  that  he 
must  first  dispose  of  those  who  would  naturally  be 
the  allies  of  this  much-to-be-persecuted  enemy.  The 
Menapii,  with  whom  we  may  remember  that  he  had 
never  quite  settled  'matters  in  his  former  war,  and 
who  live  on  the  southern  banks  of  the  Meuse  not  far 
from  the  sea,  have  not  even  yet  sent  to  him  messen¬ 
gers  to  ask  for  peace.  He  burns  their  villages,  takes 
their  cattle,  makes  slaves  of  the  men,  and  then  binds 
them  by  hostages  to  have  no  friendship  with  Am¬ 
biorix.  In  the  mean  time  Labienus  utterly  defeats  the 
great  north-eastern  tribe,  the  Treviri,  whom  he  cun¬ 
ningly  allures  into  fighting  just  before  they  are  joined 
by  certain  Germans  who  are  coming  to  aid  them. 
“Quern  Deus  vult  perdere  prius  dementat.”  These 
unfortunate  Gauls  and  Germans  fall  into  every  trap 
that  is  laid  for  them.  The  speech  which  Caesar  quotes 
as  having  been  made  by  Labienus  to  his  troops  on 
this  occasion  is  memorable.  “Now,”  says  Labienus, 
“you  have  your  opportunity.  You  have  got  your 
enemy  thoroughly  at  advantage.  That  valor  which 
you  have  so  often  displayed  before  the  ‘Imperator,’ 
Caesar,  display  now  under  my  command.  Think  that 
Caesar  is  present,  and  that  be  beholds  you.”  To  have 
written  thus  of  himself  Caesar  must  have  thought  of 
himself  as  of  a  god.  He  tells  the  story  as  though 


84  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SIXTH  BOOK. 


it  were  quite  natural  that  Labienus  and  the  soldiers 
should  so  regard  him. 

After  this  battle,  in  which  the  Treviri  are  of  course 
slaughtered,  Caesar  makes  a  second  bridge  over  the 
Rhine,  somewhat  above  the  spot  at  which  he  had 
crossed  before.  He  does  this,  he  says,  for  two  reasons, 
— first,  because  the  Germans  had  sent  assistance  to 
the  Nervii;  and  secondly,  lest  his  great  enemy  Am- 
biorix  should  find  shelter  among  the  Suevi.  Then  he 
suggests  that  the  opportunity  is  a  good  one  for  saying 
something  to  his  readers  of  the  different  manners  of 
Gaul  and  of  Germany.  Among  the  Gauls,  in  their 
tribes,  their  villages,  and  even  in  their  families,  there 
are  ever  two  factions,  so  that  one  should  always 
balance  the  other,  and  neither  become  superior.  Caesar 
so  tells  us  at  this  particular  point  of  his  narrative, 
because  he  is  anxious  to  go  back  and  explain  how  it 
was  that  he  had  taken  the  part  of  the  AEdui,  and  had 
first  come  into  conflict  with  the  Germans,  driving 
Ariovistus  back  across  the  Rhine  for  their  sake.  In 
eastern  Gaul  two  tribes  had  long  balanced  each  other, 
each,  of  course,  striving  for  mastery, — the  iEdui  and 
the  Sequani.  The  Sequani  had  called  in  the  aid  of 
the  Germans,  and  the  AEdui  had  been  very  hardly 
treated.  In  their  sufferings  they  had  appealed  to 
Rome,  having  had  former  relations  of  close  amity  with 
the  Republic.  Divitiacus,  their  chief  magistrate,  —the 
brother  of  Dumnorix  who  was  afterwards  killed  by 
Caesar’s  order  for  running  away  with  the  HMuan 
cavalry  before  the  second  invasion  of  Britain, — had 
lived  for  a  while  in  Rome,  and  had  enjoyed  Roman 
friendships,  that  of  Cicero  among  others.  There  was 
a  good  deal  of  doubt  in  Rome  as  to  what  should  be 
done  with  these  iEdui;  but  at  last,  as  we  know,  Caesar 


CAESAR  B UILDS  A  SECOND  BRIDGE.  85 


decided  on  taking  their  part;  and  we  know  also  how  he 
drove  Ariovistus  hack  into  Germany,  with  the  loss  of 
his  wives  and  daughters.  Thus  it  came  to  pass,  Caesar 
tells  us,  that  the  JEdui  were  accounted  first  of  all  the 
Gauls  in  regard  to  friendship  with  Rome;  while  the 
Remi,  who  came  to  his  assistance  so  readily  when  the 
Belgians  were  in  arms  against  him,  were  allowed  the 
second  place. 

Among  the  Gauls,  there  are,  he  says,  two  classes  of 
men  held  in  honor, — the  Druids  and  the  knights;  by 
which  we  understand  that  two  professions  or  modes  of 
life,  and  two  only,  were  open  to  the  nobility, — the  priest¬ 
hood  and  the  army.  All  the  common  people,  C*esar 
says,  are  serfs,  or  little  better.  They  do  not  hesitate, 
when  oppressed  by  debt  or  taxation,  or  the  fear  of 
some  powerful  enemy,  to  give  themselves  into  slavery, 
loving  the  protection  so  obtained.  The  Druids  have 
the  chief  political  authority,  and  can  maintain  it  by 
the  dreadful  power  of  excommunication.  The  excom¬ 
municated  wretch  is  an  outlaw,  beyond  the  pale  of 
civil  rights.  Over  the  Druids  is  one  great  Druid,  at 
whose  death  the  place  is  filled  by  election  among  all 
the  Druids,  unless  they  be  one  so  conspicuously  first 
that  no  ceremony  of  election  is  needed.  Their  most 
sacred  spot  for  worship  is  among  the  Carnutes,  in  the 
middle  of  the  country.  Their  discipline  and  mys¬ 
teries  came  to  them  from  Britain,  and  when  any  very 
knotty  point  arises  they  go  to  Britain  to  make  inquiry. 
The  Druids  don’t  fight,  and  pay  no  taxes.  The  ambi¬ 
tion  to  be  a  Druid  is  very  great;  but  then  so  is  the 
difficulty.  Twenty  years  of  tuition  is  not  uncommonly 
needed;  for  everything  has  to  be  learned  by  heart.  Of 
their  religious  secrets  nothing  may  be  written.  Their 
great  doctrine  is  the  transmigration  of  souls;  so  that 


86  THE  WAR  IN  OA  UL.— SIXTH  BOOK. 


men  should  believe  that  the  soul  never  dies,  and  that 
death,  therefore,  or  that  partial  death  which  we  see, 
need  not  be  feared.  They  are  great  also  in  astronomy, 
geography,  natural  history, — and  general  theology,  of 
course. 

The  knights,  or  nobles,  have  no  resource  but  to 
tight.  Caesar  suggests  that  before  the  blessing  of  his 
advent  they  were  driven  to  the  disagreeable  necessity 
of  fighting  yearly  with  each  other.  Of  all  people  the 
Gauls,  he  says,  are  the  most  given  to  superstition;  in 
so  much  so,  that  in  all  dangers  and  difficulties  they 
have  recourse  to  human  sacrifices,  in  which  the  Druids 
are  their  ministers.  They  burn  their  victims  to 
appease  their  deities,  and,  by  preference,  will  burn 
thieves  and  murderers, — the  gods  loving  best  such 
polluted  victims, — but,  in  default  of  such,  will  have 
recourse  to  an  immolation  of  innocents.  Then  Caesar 
tells  us  that  among  the  gods  they  chiefly  worship 
Mercury,  whom  they  seem  to  have  regarded  as  the 
cleverest  of  the  gods;  but  they  also  worship  Apollo, 
Mars,  Jove,  and  Minerva,  ascribing  to  them  the  attri¬ 
butes  which  are  allowed  them  by  other  nations.  How 
the  worship  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  gods  became 
mingled  with  the  religion  of  the  Druids  we  are  not 
told,  nor  does  Caesar  express  surprise  that  it  should 
have  been  so.  Caesar  gives  the  Roman  names  of 
these  gods,  but  he  does  not  intend  us  to  understand 
that  they  were  so  called  by  the  Gauls,  who  had  their  • 
own  names  for  their  deities.  The  trophies  of  war 
they  devote  to  Mars,  and  in  many  states  keep  large 
stores  of  such  consecrated  spoils.  It  is  not  often 
that  a  Gaul  will  commit  the  sacrilege  of  appropri¬ 
ating  to  his  own  use  anything  thus  made  sacred; 
but  the  punishment  of  such  offence,  when  it  is  com- 


MANNERS  OF  THE  GAULS. 


87 


mitted,  is  death  by  torture.  There  is  the  greatest 
veneration  from  sons  to  their  fathers.  Until  the 
son  can  hear  arms  he  does  not  approach  his  father, 
or  even  stand  in  public  in  his  presence.  The  hus¬ 
band’s  fortune  is  made  to  equal  the  wife’s  dowry,  and 
then  the  property  is  common  between  them.  This 
seems  well  enough,  and  the  law  would  suit  the  views 
of  British  wives  of  the  present  day.  But  the  next 
Gaulish  custom  is  not  so  well  worthy  of  example. 
Husbands  have  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  their 
wives  and  children;  and  when  any  man  of  mark  dies,  if 
there  be  cause  for  suspicion,  his  wives  are  examined 
under  torture,  and  if  any  evil  practice  be  confessed,  they 
are  there  tortured  to  death.  We  learn  from  this  passage 
that  polygamy  was  allowed  among  the  Gauls.  The 
Gauls  have  grand  funerals.  Things  which  have  been 
dear  to  the  departed  are  burned  at  these  ceremonies. 
Animals  were  thus  burned  in  Caesar’s  time,  but  in 
former  days  slaves  also,  and  dependents  who  had  been 
specially  loved.  The  best-governed  states  are  very 
particular  in  not  allowing  rumors  as  to  state  affairs  1o 
be  made  matter  of  public  discussion.  Anything  heard 
is  to  be  told  to  the  magistrate;  but  there  is  to  be  no 
discussion  on  public  affairs  except  in  the  public  coun¬ 
cil.  So  much  we  hear  of  the  customs  of  the  Gauls. 

The  Germans  differ  from  the  Gauls  in  many  things, 
They  know  nothing  of  Druids,  nor  do  they  care  for 
sacrifices.  They  worship  only  what  they  see  aDd 
enjoy, — the  sun,  and  fire,  and  the  moon.  They  spend 
their  time  in  hunting  and  war,  and  care  little  for 
agriculture.  They  live  on  milk,  cheese,  and  flesh. 
They  are  communists  as  to  the  soil,  and  stay  no 
longer  than  a  year  on  the  same  land.  These  customs 
they  follow  lest  they  should  learn  to  prefer  agriculture 


88  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— SIXTH  BOOK. 


to  war ;  lest  they  should  grow  fond  of  broad  posses¬ 
sions,  so  that  the  rich  should  oppress  the  poor;  lest 
they  should  by  too  much  comfort  become  afraid  of 
cold  and  heat;  lest  the  love  of  money  should  grow 
among  them,  and  one  man  should  seek  to  be  higher 
than  another.  From  all  of  which  it  seems  that  the 
Germans  were  not  without  advanced  ideas  in  political 
economy. 

It  is  a  great  point  with  the  Germans  to  have  no 
near  neighbors.  For  the  sake  of  safety  and  inde¬ 
pendence,  each  tribe  loves  to  have  a  wide  margin.  In 
war  the  chieftains  have  power  of  life  and  death.  In 
time  of  peace  there  are  no  appointed  magistrates,  but 
the  chiefs  in  the  cantons  declare  justice  and  quell 
litigation  as  well  as  they  can.  Thieving  in  a  neigh¬ 
boring  state, — not  in  his  own, — is  honorable  to  a 
German.  Expeditions  for  thieving  are  formed,  which 
men  may  join  or  not  as  they  please;  but  woe  betide 
him  who,  having  promised,  fails.  They  are  good  to 
traveling  strangers.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
Gauls  were  better  men  than  the  Germans,  and  could 
come  into  Germany  and  take  German  land.  Even 
now,  says  Caesar,  there  are  Gaulish  tribes  living  in 
Germany  after  German  fashion.  But  the  nearness  of 
the  Province  to  Gaul  has  taught  the  Gauls  luxury,  and 
so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  Gauls  are  not  as  good 
in  battle  as  they  used  to  be.  It  is  interesting  to 
gather  from  all  these  notices  the  progress  of  civiliza¬ 
tion  through  the  peoples  of  Europe,  and  some  hint 
as  to  what  has  been  thought  to  be  good  and  bad 
for  humanity  by  various  races  before  the  time  of 
Christ. 

Caesar  then  tells  us  of  a  great  Hercynian  forest, 
beginning  from  the  north  of  Switzerlan  d  and  stretch- 


GJSSAR  PURSUES  AMBIORIX. 


89 


ing  away  to  the  Danube.  A  man  in  nine  days  would 
traverse  its  breadth;  but  even  in  sixty  days  a  man 
could  not  get  to  the  end  of  it  lengthwise.  We  may 
presume  that  the  Black  Forest  was  a  portion  of  it.  It 
contains  many  singular  beasts, — bisons  with  one  horn ; 
elks,  which  are  like  great  stags,  but  which  have  no 
joints  in  their  legs,  and  cannot  lie  down, — nor,  if 
knocked  down,  can  they  get  up, — which  sleep  leaning 
against  trees ;  but  the  trees  sometimes  break,  and  then 
the  elk  falls  and  has  a  bad  time  of  it.  Then  there  is 
the  urus,  almost  as  big  as  an  elephant,  which  spares 
neither  man  nor  beast.  It  is  a  grsat  thing  to  kill  a 
urus,  but  no  one  can  tame  them,  even  when  young. 
The  Germans  are  fond  of  mounting  the  horns  of  this 
animal  with  silver,  and  using  them  for  drinking-cups. 

Caesar  does  very  little  over  among  the  Germans.  He 
comes  back,  partly  destroys  .  his  bridge,  and  starts 
again  in  search  of  Ambiorix.  His  lieutenant  Basilus 
nearly  takes  the  poor  hunted  chieftain,  but  Ambiorix 
escapes,  and  Caesar  moralizes  about  fortune.  Ambi¬ 
orix,  the  reader  will  remember,  was  joint  king  over  the 
Eburones  with  one  Cativolcus.  Cativolcus,  who  is  old, 
finding  how  his  people  are  harassed,  curses  his 
brother  king  who  has  brought  these  sorrows  on  the 
nation,  and  poisons  himself  with  the  juice  of  yew-tree. 

All  the  tribes  in  the  Belgic  country,  Gauls  as  well  as 
Germans,  were  now  very  much  harassed.  They  all 
had  helped,  or  might  have  helped,  or,  if  left  to  them 
selves,  might  at  some  future  time  give  help  to  Ambi¬ 
orix  and  the  Eburones.  Caesar  divides  his  army, 
but  still  goes  himself  in  quest  of  his  victim  into 
the  damp  uncomfortable  countries  near  the  mouths 
of  the  Scheldt  and  Meuse.  Here  he  is  much  dis- 
tracted  between  his  burning  desire  to  extirpate 


90 


THE  WAR  IN  G A  UL—  SIXTH  BOOK 


that  race  of  wicked  men  over  whom  Ambiorix  had 
been  king,  and  his  anxiety  lest  he  should  lose  more 
of  his  own  men  in  the  work  than  the  wicked  race 
is  worth.  He  invites  the  neighboring  Gauls  to  help 
him  in  the  work,  so  that  Gauls  should  perish  in 
those  inhospitable  regions  rather  than  his  own  legion, 
aries.  This,  however,  is  fixed  in  his  mind,  that  a  tribe 
which  has  been  guilty  of  so  terrible  an  offence, — which 
has  destroyed  in  war  an  army  of  his,  just  as  he  would 
have  delighted  to  destroy  a  Gaulish  army,  —  must 
be  extirpated,  so  that  its  very  name  may  cease  to 
exist!  “Pro  tali  facinore,  stirps  ac  nomen  civitatis 
tollatur.” 

Caesar,  in  dividing  his  army,  had  stationed  Q.  Cicero 
with  one  legion  and  the  heavy  baggage  and  spoils  of 
the  army,  in  a  fortress  exactly  at  that  spot  from  which 
Titurius  Sabinus  had  been  lured  bv  the  craft  of  Ambi- 

V 

orix.  Certain  Germans,  the  Sigambri,  having  learned 
that  all  the  property  of  the  Eburones  had  been  given  up 
by '  Caesar  as  a  prey  to  any  who  would  take  it,  had 
crossed  the  Rhine  that  they  might  thus  fill  their  hands. 
But  it  is  suggested  to  them  that  they  may  fill  their 
hands  much  fuller  by  attacking  Q.  Cicero  in  his  camp ; 
and  they  do  attack  him,  when  the  best  part  of  his  army 
is  away  looking  for  provisions.  That  special  spot  in  the 
territory  of  the  Eburones  is  again  nearly  fatal  to  a  Ro¬ 
man  legion.  But  the  Germans,  not  knowing  how  to 
press  the  advantage  they  gain,  return  with  their  spoil 
across  the  Rhine,  and  Caesar  again  comes  up  like  a  god. 
But  he  has  not  yet  destroyed  Ambiorix, — who  indeed  is 
not  taken  at  last, — and  expresses  his  great  disgust  and 
amazement  that  the  coming  of  these  Germans,  which 
was  planned  with  the  view  of  injuring  Ambiorix, 


AMBIORIX  ESCAPES. 


91 


should  have  done  instead  so  great  a  service  to  that 
monstrously  wicked  chieftain. 

He  does  his  very  best  to  catch  Ambiorix  in  person, 
offering  great  rewards  and  inducing  his  men  to  undergo 
all  manner  of  hardships  in  the  pursuit.  Ambiorix, 
however,  with  three  or  four  chosen  followers,  escapes 
him.  But  Caesar  is  not  without  revenge.  He  burns 
all  the  villages  of  the  Eburones,  and  all  their  houses. 
He  so  lays  waste  the  country  that  even  when  his  army 
is  gone  not  a  soul  should  be  able  to  live  there.  After 
that  he  probably  allowed  himself  to  be  shaved.  Am¬ 
biorix  is  seen  here  and  is  seen  there,  but  with  hair¬ 
breadth  chances  eludes  his  pursuer.  Caesar,  having 
thus  failed,  returns  south,  as  winter  approaches,  to 
Rheims, — Durocortorum ;  and  just  telling  us  in  four 
words  how  he  had  one  Acco  tortured  to  death  because 
Acco  had  headed  a  conspiracy  in  the  middle  of  Gaul 
among  the  Carnutes  and  Senones,  and  how  he  out¬ 
lawed  and  banished  others  whom  he  could  not  catch, 
he  puts  his  legions  into  winter  quarters,  and  again 
goes  back  to  Italy  to  hold  assizes  and  look  after  his 
interests  amid  the  great  affairs  of  the  Republic 


CHAPTER  YIH. 


SEVENTH  BOOK  OP  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — THE  REVOLT 
OF  VERCINGETORIX — B.  C.  52. 

In  opening  his  account  of  his  seventh  campaign  Caesar 
makes  almost  the  only  reference  to  the  affairs  of  Rome 
which  we  find  in  these  memoirs.  Clodius  has  been 
murdered.  We  know  too,  that  Crassus  had  been  killed 
at  the  head  of  his  army  in  the  east,  and  that,  at  the  death 
of  Clodius,  Pompey  had  been  created  Dictator  in  the 
city  with  the  name  of  sole  Consul.  Caesar,  however, 
only  mentions  the  murder  of  Clodius,  and  then  goes  on 
to  say  that  the  Gauls,  knowing  how  important  to  him 
must  be  the  affairs  of  Rome  at  this  moment,  think  that 
he  cannot  now  attend  to  them,  and  that,  in  his  absence, 
they  may  shake  off  the  Roman  yoke.  The  affairs  of 
Rome  must  indeed  have  been  important  to  Caesar,  if, 
as  no  doubt  is  true,  he  had  already  before  his  eyes  a 
settled  course  of  action  by  which  to  make  himself  su¬ 
preme  in  the  Republic.  Clodius,  the  demagogue,  was 
dead,  whom  he  never  could  have  loved,  but  whom  it 
had  not  suited  him  to  treat  as  an  enemy.  Crassus,  too, 
was  dead,  whom,  on  account  of  his  wealth,  Caesar  had 
admitted  as  a  colleague.  Pompey,  the  third  triumvir, 
remained  at  Rome,  and  was  now  sole  Consul;  Pom¬ 
pey  who,  only  twelve  months  since,  had  so  fondly 


THE  REVOLT  OF  YERCINGETORIX.  93 


given  up  his  legion  for  the  sake  of  the  Republic, — and 
for  friendship.  Caesar,  no  doubt,  foresaw  by  this  time 
that  the  struggle  must  be  at  last  between  himself  and 
Pompey.  The  very  forms  of  the  old  republican  rule 
were  being  turned  adrift,  and  Caesar  must  have  known, 
as  Pompey  also  knew,  and  Clodius  had  known,  and 
even  Crassus,  that  a  new  power  would  become  para¬ 
mount  in  the  city.  But  the  hands  to  rest  such  power 
must  be  very  strong.  And  the  day  had  not  yet  quite 
come.  Having  spent  six  summers  in  subduing  Gaul, 
Caesar  would  not  lose  the  prestige,  the  power,  the  sup¬ 
port,  which  such  a  territory,  really  subdued,  would  give 
him.  Things,  doubtless,  were  important  at  Rome,  but 
it  was  still  his  most  politic  course  to  return  over  the 
Alps  and  complete  his  work.  Before  the  winter  was 
over  he  heard  that  the  tribes  were  conspiring,  because 
it  was  thought  that  at  such  an  emergency  Caesar  could 
not  leave  Italy. 

This  last  book  of  the  Commentary,  as  written  by 
Caesar,  tells  the  story  of  the  gallant  Vercingetorix,  one 
of  theArverni, — the  modern  Auvergne, — whose  father, 
Celtillus,  is  said  to  have  sought  the  chieftainship  of  all 
Gaul,  and  to  have  been  killed  on  that  account  by  his 
own  state.  Yercingetorix  is  certainly  the  hero  of  these 
wars  on  the  Gaulish  side,  though  we  hear  nothing  of 
him  till  this  seventh  campaign .  The  conspiracy  against 
Rome  is  afloat,  the  Carnutes,  whose  chief  town  is  Gena- 
bum, — Orleans, — having  commenced  it.  Yercingetorix 
excites  his  own  countrymen  to  join,  but  is  expelled  from 
their  town,  Gergovia,  for  the  attempt.  The  Arverni,  or 
at  least  their  chief  men,  fear  to  oppose  the  Romans; 
but  Yercingetorix  obtains  a  crowd  of  followers  out  in 
the  country,  and  perseveres.  Men  of  other  tribes  come 
to  him,  from  as  far  north  as  Paris,  and  west  from  the 


94  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


Ocean.  He  assumes  supreme  power,  and  enacts  and 
carries  out  most  severe  laws  for  his  guidance  during  the 
war  For  any  greater  offence  he  burns  the  offender 
alive  and  subjects  him  to  all  kinds  of  torments.  For 
any  small  fault  he  cuts  off  a  man’s  ears,  pokes  out  one 
of  his  eyes,  and  sends  him  home,  that  he  may  be  an 
example  visible  to  all  men.  By  threats  of  such  pun¬ 
ishment  to  those  who  do  not  join  him,  and  by  inflict¬ 
ing  such  on  those  who  do  and  are  then  untrue  to  him 
or  lukewarm,  he  gets  together  a  great  army.  Caesar, 
who  is  still  in  Italy,  hears  of  all  this,  and  having  made 
things  comfortable  with  Pompey,  hurries  into  the  prov¬ 
ince.  He  tells  us  of  his  great  difficulty  in  joining 
his  army, — of  the  necessity  which  is  incumbent  on  him 
of  securing  even  the  Roman  Province  from  invasion, 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  he  breaks  through  snow- 
clad  mountains,  the  Cevennes,  at  a  time  of  the  year  in 
which  such  mountains  were  supposed  to  be  impassable. 
He  is  forced  into  fighting  before  the  winter  is  over,  be¬ 
cause,  unless  he  does  so,  the  few  friends  he  has  in  Gaul, 
— the  iEdui,  for  instance, — will  have  been  gained  over 
by  the  enemy.  This  made  it  very  difficult,  Caesar  tells 
us,  for  him  to  know  what  to  do;  but  he  decides  that 
he  must  begin  hji  campaign,  though  it  be  winter  still. 

Caesar,  moving  his  army  about  with  wonderful  quick¬ 
ness,  takes  three  towns  in  the  centre  of  Gaul,  of  which 
Genabum,  Orleans,  is  the  first,  and  thus  provides  him¬ 
self  with  food.  Yercingetorix,  when  he  hears  of  these 
losses,  greatly  troubled  in  his  mind  that  Caesar  should 
thus  be  enabled  to  exist  on  the  provisions  gathered  by 
the  Gauls,  determines  to  burn  all  the  Gaulish  towns  in 
those  parts.  He  tells  his  people  that  there  is  nothing 
else  for  them  in  their  present  emergency,  and  that  they 
must  remember  when  they  see  their  hearths  smoking 


THE  FATE  OF  A  VARICUM. 


95 


and  their  property  destroyed,  that  it  would  he,  or  ought 
to  be,  much  more  grievous  for  them  to  know  that  their 
wives  and  children  would  become  slaves,  as  undoubt¬ 
edly  would  be  their  fate,  if  Csesar  were  allowed  to  pre¬ 
vail.  The  order  is  given.  Twenty  cities  belonging  to 
one  tribe  are  burned  to  the  ground.  The  same  thing 
is  done  in  other  States.  But  there  is  one  very  beauti¬ 
ful  city,  the  glory  of  the  country  round,  which  can,  they 
say,  be  so  easily  defended  that  it  will  be  a  comfort 
rather  than  a  peril  to  them.  Avaricum,  the  present 
Bourges, — must  that  also  be  burned?  May  not  Ava¬ 
ricum  be  spared?  Yercingetorix  is  all  for  burning 
Avaricum  as  he  has  burned  the  others ;  but  he  allows 
himself  to  be  persuaded,  and  the  city  is  spared — for  the 
time, 

Csesar,  of  course,  determines  to  take  Avaricum ;  but 
he  encounters  great  difficulties.  The  cattle  have  been 
driven  away.  There  is  no  corn.  Those  wretched 
iEdui  do  almost  nothing  for  him ;  and  the  Boii,  who 
are  their  neighbors,  and  who,  at  the  best,  are  but  a 
poor  scanty  people,  are  equally  unserviceable.  Some 
days  his  army  is  absolutely  without  food ;  but  yet  no 
word  of  complaint  is  heard  “  unworthy  of  the  majesty 
and  former  victories  of  the  Roman  people.”  The  sol¬ 
diers  even  beg  him  to  continue  the  siege  when  he  oilers 
to  raise  it  because  of  the  hardships  they  are  enduring. 
Let  them  endure  anything,  they  say,  but  failure! 
“Moreover  Csesar,  when  he  would  accost  ftis  legions 
one  by  one  at  their  work,  and  would  tell  them  that  he 
would  raise  the  siege  if  they  could  but  ill  bear  their 
privations,  was  implored  by  all  of  them  not  to  do  that. 
They  said  that  for  many  years  under  his  command  they 
had  so  well  done  their  duty  that  they  had  undergone  no 
disgrace,  had  never  quitted  their  ground  leaving  aught 


96  THE  WAR  IN  GA  EL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


unfinished,” — except  the  subjugation  of  Britain  they 
might  perhaps  have  said, — “that  they  would  be  now 
disgraced  if  they  should  raise  a  siege  which  had  been 
commenced;  that  they  would  rather  bear  all  hardships 
than  not  avenge  the  Roman  citizens  who  had  perished 
at  Genabum  by  the  perfidy  of  the  Gauls.”  Ca3sar  puts 
these  words  into  the  mouths  of  his  legionaries,  and 
as  we  read  them  we  believe  that  such  was  the  existing 
spirit  of  the  men.  Caesar’s  soldiers  now  had  learned 
better  than  to  cry  because  they  were  afraid  of  their 
enemies. 

Then  we  hear  that  Vercingetorix  is  in  trouble  with 
the  Gauls.  The  Gauls,  when  they  see  the  Romans  so 
near  them,  think  that  they  are  to  be  betrayed  into 
Caesar's  hands,  and  they  accuse  their  leader.  But 
Vercingetorix  makes  them  a  speech,  and  brings  up  cer¬ 
tain  Roman  prisoners  to  give  evidence  as  to  the  evil 
condition  of  the  Roman  army.  Vercingetorix  swears 
that  these  prisoners  are  soldiers  from  the  Roman 
legions,  and  so  settles  that  little  trouble;  but  Caesar, 
defending  his  legionaries,  asserts  that  the  men  so 
used  were  simply  slaves. 

Vercingetorix  is  in  his  camp  at  some  little  distance 
from  Avaricum,  while  Caesar  is  determined  to  take  the 
city.  We  have  the  description  of  the  siege,  concise, 
graphic,  and  clear.  We  are  told  of  the  nature  of  the 
walls;  how  the  Gauls  were  good  at  mining  and 
countermining;  how  they  flung  hot  pitch  and  boiling 
grease  on  the  invaders;  how  this  was  kept  up,  one 
Gaul  after  another  stepping  on  to  the  body  of  his 
dying  comrade;  how  at  last  they  resolved  to  quit  the 
town  and  make  their  way  by  night  to  the  camp  of 
Vercingetorix,  but  were  stopped  by  the  prayers  of  their 
own  women,  who  feared  Caesar’s  mercies; — and  how  at 


THE  FATE  OF  A  VABIGUM. 


97 


last  the  city  was  taken.  We  cannot  hut  execrate 
Caesar  when  he  tells  us  coolly  of  the  result.  They 
were  all  killed.  The  old,  the  women,  and  the  chil¬ 
dren,  perished  together,  slaughtered  by  the  Romans. 
Out  of  forty  thousand  inhabitants,  Caesar  says  that 
about  eight  hundred  got  safely  to  Yercingetorix.  Of 
course  we  doubt  the  accuracy  of  Caesar’s  figures  when 
he  tells  us  of  the  numbers  of  the  Gauls;  but  we  do  not 
doubt  that  but  a  few  escaped,  and  that  all  but  a  few 
were  slaughtered.  When,  during  the  last  campaign, 
the  Gauls  at  Genabum  (Orleans)  had  determined  on 
revolt  against  Caesar,  certain  Roman  traders — usurers 
for  the  most  part,  who  had  there  established  them¬ 
selves — were  killed.  Caesar  gives  this  as  the  cause,  and 
sufficient  cause,  for  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  women 
and  children!  One  reflects  that  not  otherwise,  per¬ 
haps,  could  he  have  conquered  Gaul,  and  that  Gaul 
had  to  be  conquered ;  but  we  cannot  for  the  moment 
but  abhor  the  man  capable  of  such  work.  Yercinget¬ 
orix  bears  his  loss  bravely.  He  reminds  the  Gauls 
that  had  they  taken  his  advice  the  city  would  have 
been  destroyed  by  themselves  and  not  defended  ;  he 
tells  them  that  all  the  states  of  Gaul  are  now  ready 
to  join  him;  and  he  prepares  to  fortify  a  camp  after 
the  Roman  fashion.  Hitherto  the  Gauls  have  fought 
either  from  behind  the  walls  of  towns,  or  out  in  the 
open  country  without  other  protection  than  that  of 
the  woods  and  hills. 

Then  there  is  another  episode  with  those  unsatisfac¬ 
tory  iEdui.  There  is  a  quarrel  among  them  who  shall 
be  their  chief  magistrate, — a  certain  old  man  or  a  cer¬ 
tain  young  man, — and  they  send  to  Caesar  to  settle  the 
question.  Caesar’s  hands  are  very  full;  but,  as  he 
explains,  it  is  essential  to  him  that  his  allies  shall  be 


98  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


kept  in  due  subordinate  order.  He  therefore  absolutely 
goes  in  person  to  one  of  their  cities,  and  decides  that 
the  young  man  shall  be  the  chief  magistrate.  But, 
as  he  seldom  does  anything  for  nothing,  he  begs  that 
ten  thousand  iEduan  infantry  and  all  the  HMuan  cav¬ 
alry  may  be  sent  to  help  him  against  Vercingetorix. 
The  HSdui  have  no  alternative  but  to  comply.  Their 
compliance,  however,  is  not  altogether  of  a  friendly 
nature.  The  old  man  who  has  been  put  out  of  the 
magistracy  gets  hold  of  the  ^Eduan  general  of  the 
forces;  and  the  iEduan  army  takes  the  field, — to  help, 
not  Caesar,  but  Vercingetorix!  There  is  a  large  amount 
of  lying  and  teachery  among  the  iEdui,  and  of  course 
tidings  of  what  is  going  on  are  carried  to  Caesar.  Over 
and  over  again  these  people  deceive  him,  betray  him, 
and  endeavor  to  injure  his  cause;  but  he  always  for¬ 
gives  them,  or  pretends  to  forgive  them.  It  is*  his 
policy  to  show  to  the  G-auls  how  great  can  be  the 
friendship  and  clemency  of  Caesar.  If  he  would  have 
burned  the  iEdui  and  spared  Bourges  we  should  have 
liked  him  better;  but  then,  had  he  done  so,  he  would 
not  have  been  Caesar. 

While  Caesar  is  thus  troubled  with  his  allies,  he  has 
trouble  enough  also  with  his  enemies.  Vercingetorix, 
with  his  followers,  after  that  terrible  reverse  at  Avari- 
cum, — Bourges, — goes  into  his  own  country  which  we 
know  as  Auvergne,  and  there  encamps  his  army  on  a 
high  hill  with  a  flat  top,  called  Gergovia.  All  of  us 
who  have  visited  Clermont  have  probably  seen  the 
hill.  Vercingetorix  makes  three  camps  for  his  army 
on  the  hill,  and  the  Arverni  have  a  town  there.  The 
Gaul  has  so  placed  himself  thet  there  shall  be  a  river 
not  capable  of  being  forded  between  himself  and  Caesar. 
But  the  Roman  general  makes  a  bridge  and  sets  him- 


THE  SIEGE  OF  GERGOVIA. 


99 


self  down  with  his  legions  before  Gergovia.  The  limits 
of  this  little  work  do  not  admit  of  any  detailed  descrip¬ 
tion  of  Caesar’s  battles;  but  perhaps  there  is  none  more 
interesting  than  this  siege.  The  three  Gaulish  camps 
are  taken.  The  women  of  Gergovia,  thinking  that 
their  town  is  taken  also,  leaning  over  the  walls,  implore 
mercy  from  the  Romans,  and  beg  that  they  may  not 
be  treated  as  have  the  women  of  Avaricum.  Certain 
leading  Roman  soldiers  absolutely  climb  up  into  the 
town.  The  reader  also  thinks  that  Caesar  is  to  prevail 
as  he  always  does  prevail.  But  he  is  beaten  back,  and 
has  to  give  it  up.  On  this  occasion  the  gallant 
Vercingetorix  is  the  master  of  the  day,  and  Caesar, 
excuses  himself  by  explaining  how  it  was  that  his 
legions  were  defeated  through  the  rash  courage  of  his 
own  men,  and  not  by  bad  generalship  of  his  own. 
And  it  probably  was  so.  The  reader  always  feels  in¬ 
clined  to  believe  the  Commentary,  even  when  he  may 
most  dislike  Caesar.  Caesar  again  makes  his  bridge 
over  the  river,  the  Allier,  and  retires  into  the  territory 
of  his  doubtful  friends  the  iEdui.  He  tells  us  himself 
that  in  that  affair  he  lost  700  men  and  46  officers. 

It  seems  that  at  this  time  Caesar  with  his  whole  army 
must  have  been  in  great  danger  of  being  destroyed  by 
the  Gauls.  Why  Yercingetorix  did  not  follow  up  his 
victory  and  prevent  Caesar  from  escaping  over  the  Allier 
is  not  explained.  Ho  doubt  the  requirements  of  war- 
far  were  not  known  to  the  Gaul  as  they  were  to  the 
Roman.  As  it  was,  Caesar  had  enough  to  do  to  save 
his  army.  The  iEdui,  of  course,  turned  against  him 
again.  All  his  stores  and  treasure  and  baggage  were 
at  Noviodunum, — Nevers, — a  town  belonging  to  the 
Aldui.  These  are  seized  by  his  allies,  who  destroy  all 
that  they  cannot  carry  away,  and  Caesar’s  army  is  in 


loo  the  war  in  a  a  ul. —seventh  book. 


danger  of  being  starved.  Everything  has  been  eaten 
up  where  he  is,  and  the  Loire,  without  bridges  or  fords, 
was  between  him  and  a  country  where  food  was  to  be 
found.  He  does  cross  the  river,  the  HSdui  having  sup¬ 
posed  that  it  would  be  impossible.  He  finds  a  spot  in 
which  his  men  can  wade  across  with  their  shoulders 
just  above  the  waters.  And  as  the  spot  is  for  fording, 
in  his  great  difficulty  he  makes  the  attempt  and  accom¬ 
plishes  it. 

Then  there  is  an  account  of  a  battle  which  Labienus 
is  obliged  to  fight  up  near  Paris.  He  has  four  legions 
away  with  him  there,  and  having  heard  of  Caesar’s  mis¬ 
fortune  at  Gergovia,  knows  how  imperative  it  is  that 
he  should  join  his  chief.  He  fights  his  battle  and 
wins  it,  and  Caesar  tells  the  story  quite  as  enthusias¬ 
tically  as  though  he  himself  had  been  the  conqueror. 
When  this  difficulty  is  overcome,  Labienus  comes 
south  and  joins  his  Imperator. 

The  Gauls  are  still  determined  to  drive  Caesar  out 
of  their  country,  and  with  this  object  call  together  a 
great  council  at  Bibracte,  which  was  the  chief  town 
of  the  JEdui.  It  was  afterwards  called  Augustodu- 
num,  which  has  passed  into  the  modern  name  Autun. 
At  this  meeting,  the  HMui,  who,  having  been  for  some 
years  past  bolstered  up  by  Rome,  think  themselves 
the  first  of  all  the  Gauls,  demand  that  the  chief 
authority  in  the  revolt  against  Rome, — now  that  they 
have  revolted, — shall  be  intrusted  to  them.  An 
HUduan  chief,  they  think,  should  be  the  commander- 
in-chief  in  this  war  against  Rome.  Who  has  done  so 
much  for  the  revolt  as  the  Hildui,  who  have  thrown 
over  their  friends  the  Romans, — now  for  about  the 
tenth  time?  But  Yercingetorix  is  unanimously  elected, 
and  the  ^Eduan  chiefs  are  disgusted.  Then  there  is  an- 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  HJDUL 


101- 


other  battle.  Yercingetorix  thinks  that  he  is  strong 
enough  to  attack  the  enemy  as  Caesar  is  going  down 
south  towards  the  Province.  Caesar,  so  says  Yercinget- 
orix,  is  in  fact  retreating.  And,  indeed,  it  seems  that 
Caesar  was  retreating.  But  the  Gauls  are  beaten  and 
fly,  losing  some  three  thousand  of  their  men  who  are 
slaughtered  in  the  fight.  Yercingetorix  shuts  him¬ 
self  \L)  in  a  town  called  Alesia,  and  Caesar  prepares  for 
another  siege. 

The  taking  of  Alesia  is  the  last  event  told  in  Caesar’s 
Commentary  on  the  Gallic  War,  and  of  all  the  stories 
told,  it  is  perhaps  the  most  heartrending.  Civilization 
was  never  forwarded  in  a  fashion  more  terrible  than  that 
which  prevailed  at  this  siege.  Yercingetorix  with  his 
whole  army  is  forced  into  the  town,  and  Caesar  sur¬ 
rounds  it  with  ditches,  works,  lines,  and  ramparts,  so 
that  no  one  shall  be  able  to  escape  from  it.  Before  this 
is  completed,  and  while  there  is  yet  a  way  open  of  leav¬ 
ing  the  town,  the  Gaulish  chief  sends  out  horsemen, 
who  are  to  go  to  all  the  tribes  of  Gaul,  and  convene  the 
fighting  men  to  that  place,  so  that  by  their  numbers 
they  may  raise  the  siege  and  expel  the  Romans.  We 
find  that  these  horsemen  do  as  they  are  bidden,  and 
that  a  great  Gaulish  conference  is  held,  at  which  it  is 
decided  how  many  men  shall  be  sent  by  each  tribe. 
Yercingetorix  has  been  very  touching  in  his  demand 
that  all  this  shall  be  done  quickly.  He  has  food  for 
the  town  for  thirty  days.  Probably  it  may  be  stretched 
to  last  a  little  longer.  Then,  if  the  tribes  are  not  true 
to  him,  he  and  the  eighty  thousand  souls  he  has  with 
him  must  perish.  The  horsemen  make  good  their 
escape  from  the  town,  and  Yercingetorix,  with  his  eighty 
thousand  hungry  souls  around  him,  prepares  to  wait. 
It  seems  to  us,  when  we  think  what  must  have  been 


102  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


the  Gallia  of  those  days,  and  when  we  remember  how 
far  thirty  days  would  now  be  for  sufficing  for  such 
a  purpose,  that  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  were 
insuperable.  But  Caesar  says  that  the  tribes  did  send 
their  men,  each  tribe  sending  the  number  demanded, 
except  the  Bellovaci, — the  men  of  Beauvais, — who 
declared  that  they  chose  to  wage  war  on  their  own 
account;  but  even  they,  out  of  kindness,  lent  two 
thousand  men.  Caesar  explains  that  even  his  own 
best  friends  among  the  Gauls, — among  whom  was 
one  Commius,  who  had  been  very  useful  to  him  in 
Britain,  and  whom  he  had  made  king  over  his  own 
tribe,  the  Atrebates, — at  this  conjuncture  of  affairs 
felt  themselves  bound  to  join  the  national  move¬ 
ment.  This  Commius  had  even  begged  for  the  two 
thousand  men  of  Beauvais.  So  great,  says  Caesar, 
was  the  united  desire  of  Gaul  to  recover  Gallic  liberty, 
that  they  were  deterred  from  coming  by  no  memory  of 
benefits  or  of  friendship.  Eight  thousand  horsemen 
and  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  footmen  assembled 
themselves  in  the  territories  of  the  iEdui.  Alesia  was 
north  of  the  iEdui,  amidst  the  Lingones.  This  enor¬ 
mous  army  chose  its  generals,  and  marched  off  to 
Alesia  to  relieve  Yercingetorix. 

But  the  thirty  days  were  passed,  and  more  than  past, 
and  the  men  and  women  in  Alesia  were  starving.  No 
tidings  ever  had  reached  Alesia  of  the  progress  which 
was  being  made  in  the  gathering  of  their  friends.  It 
had  come  to  be  very  bad  with  them  there.  Some  were 
talking  of  unconditional  surrender.  Others  proposed 
to  cut  their  way  through  the  Roman  lines.  Then  one 
Critognatus  had  a  suggestion  to  make,  and  Caesar 
gives  us  the  words  of  his  speech.  It  has  been  com¬ 
mon  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  historians  to  put 


TEE  SIEGE  OF  ALES1A. 


103 


speeches  into  the  mouths  of  certain  orators,  adding 
the  words  when  the  matter  has  come  within  either 
their  knowledge  or  belief.  Caesar  does  not  often 
thus  risk  his  credibility;  but  on  this  occasion  he  does 
so.  We  have  the  speech  of  Critognatus,  word  for 
word.  Of  those  who  speak  of  surrender  he  thinks  so 
meanly  that  he  will  not  notice  them.  As  to  that  cut¬ 
ting  a  way  through  the  Roman  lines,  which  means 
death,  he  is  of  opinion  that  to  endure  misfortune  is 
greater  than  to  die.  Many  a  man  can  die  who  cannot 
bravely  live  and  suffer.  Let  them  endure  a  little 
longer.  Why  doubt  the  truth  and  constancy  of  the 
tribes?  Then  he  makes  his  suggestion.  Let  those 
who  can  fight,  and  are  thus  useful, — eat  those  who  are 
useless  and  cannot  fight;  and  thus  live  till  the  levies 
of  all  Gaul  shall  have  come  to  their  succor!  Those 
who  have  authority  in  Alesia  cannot  quite  bring  them¬ 
selves  to  this,  but  they  do  that  which  is  horrible  in 
the  next  degree.  They  will  turn  out  of  the  town  all 
the  old,  all  the  weak,  and  all  the  women.  After  that, 
— if  that  will  not  suffice, — then  they  will  begin  to  eat 
each  other.  The  town  belongs,  or  did  belong,  to  a 
people  called  the  Mandubii, — not  to  Vercingetorix  or 
his  tribe;  and  the  Mandubii,  with  their  children  and 
women,  are  compelled  to  go  out. 

But  whither  shall  they  go?  Caesar  has  told  us  that 
there  was  a  margin  of  ground  between  his  lines  and 
the  city  wall, — an  enclosed  space  from  which  there 
was  no  egress  except  into  Caesar’s  camp  or  into  the 
besieged  town.  Here  stands  these  weak  ones, — aged 
men,  women,  and  children, — and  implore  Caesar  to 
receive  them  into  his  camp,  so  that  they  may  pass  out 
into  the  open  country.  There  they  stood  as  suppli¬ 
cants,  on  that  narrow  margin  of  ground  between  two 


104  THE  WAR  IN  GAEL —SEVENTH  BOOK. 


armies.  Their  own  friends,  having  no  food  for  them, 
had  expelled  them  from  their  own  homes.  Would 
Caesar  have  mercy?  Caesar,  with  a  wave  of  his  hand, 
declines  to  have  mercy.  He  tells  us  what  he  himself 
decides  to  do  in  eight  words.  “At  Caesar,  depositis 
in  vallo  custodiis,  recipi  prohibebat.”  “But  Caesar, 
having  placed  guards  along  the  rampart,  forbade  that 
they  should  be  received.”  We  hear  no  more  of  them, 
hut  we  know  that  they  perished! 

The  collected  forces  of  G-aul  do  at  last  come  up 
to  attempt  the  rescue  of  Vercingetorix, — and  indeed 
they  come  in  time;  were  they  able  by  coming  to  do 
anything?  They  attack  Caesar  in  his  camp,  and  a  great 
battle  is  fought  beneath  the  eyes  of  the  men  in  Alesia. 
But  Caesar  is  very  careful  that  those  who  now  are 
hemmed  up  in  the  town  shall  not  join  themselves  to 
the  Gauls  who  have  spread  over  the  country  all  around 
him.  We  hear  how  during  the  battle  Caesar  comes  up 
himself,  and  is  known  by  the  color  of  his  cloak.  We 
again  feel,  as  we  read  his  account  of  the  fighting,  that 
the  Gauls  nearly  win,  and  that  they  ought  to  win. 
But  at  last  they  are  driven  headlong  in  flight, — all  the 
levies  of  all  the  tribes.  The  Romans  kill  very  many, 
were  not  the  labor  of  killing  too  much  for  them,  they 
might  kill  all.  A  huge  crowd,  however,  escapes,  and 
the  men  scatter  themselves  back  into  their  tribes. 

On  the  next  day  Yercingetorix  yields  himself  and 
the  city  to  Caesar.  During  the  late  battle  he  and  his 
men  shut  up  within  the  walls  have  been  simply  spec¬ 
tators  of  the  fighting.  Caesar  is  sitting  In  his  lines 
before  his  camp;  and  there  the  chieftains,  with  Ver¬ 
cingetorix  at  their  head,  are  brought  up  to  him.  Plu¬ 
tarch  tells  us  a  story  of  the  chieftain  riding  up  before 
Caesar  to  deliver  himself,  with  gilt  armor,  on  a  grand 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ALES1A. 


105 


horse,  caracolling  and  prancing.  We  cannot  fancy  that 
any  horse  out  of  Alesia,  could,  after  the  siege,  have 
been  fit  for  such  holiday  occasion.  The  horses  out  of 
Yercingetorix's  stables  had  probably  been  eaten  man}r 
days  since.  Then  Caesar  again  forgives  the  AMui;  but 
Yercingetorix  is  taken  as  a  prisoner  to  Rome,  is  kept  a 
prisoner  for  six  years,  is  then  led  in  Caesar’s  Triumph, 
and,  after  these  six  years,  is  destroyed,  as  a  victim 
needed  for  Caesar’s  glory, — that  so  honor  may  be 
done  to  Caesar!  Caesar  puts  his  army  into  winter  quar¬ 
ters,  and  determines  to  remain  himself  in  Gaul  during 
the  winter.  When  his  account  of  these  things  reaches 
Rome,  a  “supplication”  of  twenty  days  is  decreed  in 
his  honor. 

This  is  the  end  of  Caesar’s  Commentary  “  De  Bello 
Gallico.”  The  war  was  carried  on  for  two  years  more; 
and  a  memoir  of  Caesar’s  doings  during  those  two  years, 
— b.c.  51  and  50, — was  written,  after  Caesar’s  manner, 
by  one  Aulus  Hirtius.  There  is  no  pretence  on  the 
writer’s  part  that  this  was  the  work  of  Caesar’s  hands, 
as  in  a  short  preface  he  makes  an  author’s  apology  for 
venturing  to  continue  what  Caesar  had  begun.  The 
most  memorable  circumstance  of  Caesar’s  warfares  told 
in  this  record  of  two  campaigns  is  the  taking  of  Uxel- 
lodunum,  a  town  in  the  south-west  of  France,  the  site 
of  which  is  not  now  known.  Caesar  took  the  town  by 
cutting  off  the  water,  and  then  horribly  mutilated  the 
inhabitants  who  had  dared  to  defend  their  own  hearths. 
“Caesar,”  says  this  historian,  “knowing  well  that 
his  clemency  was  acknowledged  by  all  men,  and  that  he 
need  not  fear  that  any  punishment  inflicted  by  him 
would  be  attributed  to  the  cruelty  of  his  nature,  per¬ 
ceiving  also  that  he  could  never  know  what  might  be 


106  tee  WAR  IN  GAUL.— fifth  book. 


the  end  of  his  policy  if  such  rebellions  should  continue 
to  break  out,  thought  that  other  Gauls  should  be  deter¬ 
red  by  the  fear  of  punishment.”  So  he  cut  off  the 
hands  of  all  those  who  had  borne  arms  at  Uxellodu- 
num,  and  turned  the  maimed  wretches  adrift  upon  the 
world!  And  his  apologist  adds,  that  he  gave  them  life 
so  that  the  punishment  of  these  wicked  ones, — who 
had  fought  for  their  liberty, — might  be  the  more  mani¬ 
fest  to  the  world  at  large!  This  was  perhaps  the 
crowning  act  of  Caesar’s  cruelty, — defended,  as  we  see, 
by  the  character  he  had  achieved  for  clemency ! 

Soon  after  this  Gaul  was  really  subdued,  and  then 
we  hear  the  first  preparatory  notes  of  the  coming  civil 
war.  An  attempt  was  made  at  Rome  to  ruin  Caesar  in 
his  absence.  One  of  the  consuls  of  the  year. — b.  c.  51, 
— endeavored  to  deprive  him  of  the  remainder  of  the 
term  of  his  proconsulship,  and  to  debar  him  from  seek¬ 
ing  the  suffrages  of  the  people  for  the  consulship  in  his 
absence.  Two  of  his  legions  are  also  demanded  from 
him,  and  are  surrendered  by  him.  The  order,  indeed, 
is  for  one  legion  from  him  and  one  from  Pompeius; 
but  he  has  had  with  him,  as  the  reader  will  remember, 
a  legion  borrowed  from  Pompeius; — and  thus  in  fact 
Caesar  is  called  upon  to  give  up  two  legions.  And  he 
gives  them  up, — not  being  as  yet  quite  ready  to  pass 
the  Rubicon. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — CiESAR  CROSSES  THE 
RUBICON. — FOLLOWS  POMPEY  TO  BRUNDUSIUM. — 
AND  CONQUERS  AFRANIUS  IN  SPAIN. — B.  C.  49. 

Ch:sar  now  gives  us  his  history  of  that  civil  war  in 
which  he  and  Pompey  contended  for  the  mastery  over 
Rome  and  the  Republic.  In  his  first  Commentary  he 
had  recorded  his  campaigns  in  Caul, — campaigns  in 
which  he  reduced  tribes  which  were,  if  not  hostile,  at  any 
rate  foreign,  and  by  his  success  in  which  he  carried  on 
and  maintained  the  potency,  traditions  and  purport  of 
the  Roman  Republic.  It  was  the  ambition  of  the 
Roman  to  be  master  of  the  known  world.  In  his  ideas 
no  more  of  the  world  was  really  known  than  had 
become  Roman,  and  any  extension  to  the'limits  of  this 
world  could  only  be  made  by  the  addition  of  so-called 
barbarous  tribes  to  the  number  of  Roman  subjects.  In 
reducing  Caul,  therefore,  and  in  fighting  with  the  Ger¬ 
mans,  and  going  over  to  Britain,  Caesar  was  doing  that 
which  all  good  Romans  wished  to  see  done,  and  was 
rivaling  in  the  West  the  great  deeds  whi’ch  Pompey 
had  accomplished  for  the  Republic  in  the  East.  In  this 
second  Commentary  he  is  forced  to  deal  with,  a  subject 
which  must  have  been  less  gratifying  to  Roman  readers. 
He  relates  to  us  the  victories  which  he  won  with  Roman 


108  THE  civil  war— first  book. 


legions  over  other  legions  equally  Roman,  and  by  which 
he  succeeded  in  destroying  the  liberty  of  the  Republic. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  on  Caesar’s  behalf  that 
in  truth  liberty  had  fallen  in  Rome  before  Caesar’s 
time.  Power  had  produced  wealth,  and  wealth  had 
produced  corruption.  The  tribes  of  Rome  were 
bought  and  sold  at  the  various  elections,  and  a  few 
great  oligarchs,  either  of  this  faction  or  of  that,  divided 
among  themselves  the  places  of  trust  and  honor  and 
power,  and  did  so  with  hands  ever  open  for  the  grasp¬ 
ing  of  public  wealth.  An  honest  man  with  clean 
hands  and  a  conscience,  with  scruples  and  a  love  of 
country,  became  unfitted  for  public  employment.  Cato 
in  these  days  was  simply  ridiculous;  and  even 
Cicero,  though  he  was  a  trimmer,  was  too  honest  for 
the  times.  Laws  were  wrested  from  their  purposes,  and 
the  very  Tribunes*  of  the  people  had  become  the  worst 
of  tyrants.  It  was  necessary,  perhaps,  that  there 
should  be  a  master; — so  at  least  Caesar  thought.  He 
had,  no  doubt,  seen  this  necessity  during  all  these 
years  of  fightiug  in  Gaul,  and  had  resolved  that  he 
would  not  be  less  than  First  in  the  new  order  of  things. 
So  he  crossed  the  Rubicon. 

The  reader  of  this  second  Commentary  will  find  it 
less  alluring  than  the  first.  There  is  less  in  it  of  ad¬ 
venture,  less  of  new  strange  life,  and  less  of  that  sound, 
healthy,  joyous  feeling  which  sprang  from  a  thorough 
conviction  on  Caesar’s  part  that  in  crushing  the  Gauls 


*  The  Tribunes  of  the  people  were  officers  elected  annually  to 
act  on  behalf  of  the  people  as  checks  on  the  magistracy  of  the 
Republic,  and  were  endowed  with  vast  powers,  which  they  were 
presumed  to  use  for  the  protection  of  liberty.  But  the  office  of 
Tribune  had  become  degraded  to  party  purposes,  as  had  every 
other  office  of  the  state. 


CJESAR  GROSSES  THE  RUBICON.  109 


he  was  doing  a  thoroughly  good  thing.  To  us,  and 
our  way  of  thinking,  his  doings  in  Gaul  were  stained 
with  terrible  cruelty.  To  him  and  to  his  Romans  they 
were  foul  with  no  such  stain.  How  other  Roman  con¬ 
querors  acted  to  other  conquered  peoples  we  may  learn 
from  the  fact,  that  Caesar  obtained  a  character  for  great 
mercy  by  his  forebearance  in  Gaul.  He  always  writes 
as  though  he  were  free  from  any  sting  of  conscience, 
as  he  tells  us  of  the  punishments  which  policy  called 
upon  him  to  inflict.  But  as  he  writes  of  these  civil 
wars,  there  is  an  absence  of  this  feeling  of  perfect  self- 
satisfaction,  and  at  the  same  time  he  is  much  less  cruel. 
Hecatombs  of  Gauls,  whether  men  or  women  or  chil¬ 
dren,  he  could  see  burned  or  drowned  or  starved,  mu¬ 
tilated  or  tortured,  without  a  shudder.  He  could  give 
the  command  for  such  operations  with  less  remorse 
than  we  feel  when  we  order  the  destruction  of  a  litter 
of  undesirable  puppies.  But  he  could  not  bring  him¬ 
self  to  slay  Roman  legionaries,  even  in  fair  fighting, 
with  anything  like  self-satisfaction.  In  this  he  was 
either  soft-hearted  or  had  a  more  thorough  feeling  of 
country  than  generals  or  soldiers  who  have  fought  in 
civil  contests  since  his  time  have  shown.  In  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  and  in  those  of  Cromwell  we  recognize  no 
such  feeling.  The  American  generals  were  not  so 
restrained.  But  Caesar  seems  to  have  valued  a  Roman 
legionary  more  than  a  tribe  of  Gauls. 

Nevertheless  he  crossed  the  Rubicon.  We  have 
all  heard  of  his  crossing  of  the  Rubicon,  but  Caesar 
says  nothing  about  it.  The  Rubicon  was  a  little 
river  now  almost  if  not  altogether  unknown,  running 
into  the  Adriatic  between  Ravenna  and  Ariminum, — 
Rimini, — and  dividing  the  provinces  of  so-called  Cis¬ 
alpine  Gaul  from  the  territory  under  the  immediate 


110  THE  CIVIL  WAR— FIRST.  BOOK 


rule  of  the  magistracy  of  Rome.  Caesar  was,  so  to 
say,  at  home  north  of  the  Rubicon.  He  was  in  his 
own  province,  and  had  all  things  under  his  command. 
But  he  was  forbidden  by  the  laws  even  to  enter  the 
territory  of  Rome  proper  while  in  the  command  of  a 
Roman  province;  and  therefore,  in  crossing  the  Rubi¬ 
con,  he  disobeyed  the  laws,  and  put  himself  in  opposition 
to  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  city.  It  does  not 
appear,  however,  that  very  much  was  thought  of  this, 
or  that  the  passage  of  the  river  was  in  truth  taken  as 
the  special.sign  of  Caesar’s  purpose,  or  as  a  deed  that 
was  irrevocable  in  its  consequences.  There  are  vari¬ 
ous  pretty  stories  of  Caesar’s  hesitation  as  he  stood  on 
the  brink  of  the  river,  doubting  whether  he  would 
plunge  the  world  into  civil  war  We  are  told  how  a 
spirit  appeared  to  him  and  led  him  across  the  water 
with  martial  music,  and  how  Caesar,  declaring  that  the 
die  was  cast,  went  on  and  crossed  the  fatal  stream. 
But  all  this  was  fable,  invented  on  Caesar’s  behalf  by 
Romans  who  came  after  Caesar.  Caesar’s  purpose  was, 
no  doubt,  well  understood  when  he  brought  one  of 
his  legions  down  into  that  corner  of  his  province,  but 
offers  to  treat  with  him  on  friendly  terms  were  made 
by  Pompey  and  his  party  after  he  had  established 
himself  on  the  Roman  side  of  the  river. 

When  the  civil  war  began,  Caesar  had  still,  accord- 
ihg  to  the  assignment  made  to  him,  two  years  and  a 
half  left  of  his  alloted  period  of  government  in  the 
three  provinces;  but  his  victories  and  his  power  had 
been  watched  with  anxious  eyes  from  Rome,  and  the 
Senate  had  attempted  to  decree  that  he  should  be 
recalled.  Pompey  was  no  longer  Caesar’s  friend,  nor 
did  Caesar  expect  his  friendship.  Pompey,  who  had 
lately  played  his  cards  but  badly,  and  must  have  felt 


POMPEY' S  CHARACTER. 


Ill 


•that  he  had  played  them  badly,  had  been  freed  from 
his  bondage  to  Caesar  by  the  death  of  Crassus,  the 
third  triumvir,  by  the  death  of  Julia,  Caesar’s  daugh¬ 
ter,  and  by  the  course  of  things  in  Rome.  It  had 
been  an  unnatural  alliance  arranged  by  Caesar  with 
the  view  of  clipping  his  rival’s  wings.  The  fortunes 
of  Pompey  had  hitherto  been  so  bright,  that  he  also 
had  seemed  to  be  divine.  While  still  a  boy,  he  had 
commanded  and  conquered,  women  had  adored  him, 
the  soldiers  had  worshipped  him.  Sulla  had  called 
him  the  Great;  and,  as  we  are  told,  had  raised  his 
hat  to  him  in  token  of  honor.  He  had  been  allowed 
the  glory  of  a  Triumph  while  yet  a  youth,  and  had  tri¬ 
umphed  a  second  time  before  he  had  reached  middle 
life.  He  had  triumphed  again  a  third  time,  and  the 
three  Triumphs  had  been  won  in  the  three  quarters  of 
the  globe.  In  all  things  he  had  been  successful,  and  in 
all  things  happy.  He  had  driven  the  swarming  pirates 
from  every  harbor  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  had 
filled  Rome  with  corn.  He  had  returned  a  conqueror 
with  his  legions  from  the  East,  and  had  dared  to  dis¬ 
band  them,  that  he  might  live  again  as  a  private  citi¬ 
zen.  And  after  that,  when  it  was  thought  necessary  that 
the  city  should  be  saved,  in  her  need,  from  the  factions 
of  her  own  citizens,  he  had  been  made  sole  consul. 
It  is  easier  now  to  understand  the  character  of  Pom¬ 
pey  than*  the  position  which,  by  his  unvaried  suc¬ 
cesses,  he  had  made  for  himself  in  the  minds  both  of 
the  nobles  and  of  the  people.  Even  up  to  this  time, 
even  after  Caesar’s  wars  in  Gaul,  there  was  something 
of  divinity  hanging  about  Pompey,  in  which  the 
Romans  of  the  city  trusted.  He  had  been  imperious, 
but  calm  in  manner  and  self-possessed, — allowing  no 
one  to  be  his  equal,  but  not  impatient  in  making 


112 


THE  CIVIL  WAR —FIRST  BOOK 


good  his  claims;  grand,  handsome,  lavish  when  policy 
required  it,  rapacious  when  much  needed,  never 
self-indulgent,  heartless,  false,  cruel,  politic,  ambitious, 
very  brave,  and  a  Roman  to  the  backbone.  But  he 
had  this  failing,  this  weakness; — when  the  time  for 
the  last  struggle  came,  he  did  not  quite  know  what 
it  was  that  he  desired  to  do;  he  did  not  clearly  see 
his  future.  The  things  to  be  done  were  so  great,  that 
he  had  not  ceased  to  doubt  concerning  them  when  the 
moment  came  in  which  doubt  was  fatal.  Caesar  saw 
it  all,  and  never  doubted.  That  little  tale  of  Caesar 
standing  on  the  bridge  over  the  Rubican  pondering  as 
to  his  future  course, — divided  between  obedience  and 
rebellion, — it  is  very  pretty.  But  there  was  no  such 
pondering,  and  no  such  division.  Caesar  knew  very 
well  what  he  meant  and  what  he  wanted. 

Caesar  is  full  of  his  wrongs  as  he  begins  his  second 
narrative.  He  tells  us  how  his  own  friends  are 
silenced  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  city;  how  his  ene¬ 
mies,  Scipio,  Cato,  and  Lentulus  the  consul,  prevail; 
how  no  one  is  allowed  to  say  a  word  for  him.  “  Pom- 
pey  himself,”  he  says,  “urged  on  by  the  enemies  of 
Caesar,  and  because  he  was  unwilling  that  any  one 
should  equal  himself  in  honor,  had  turned  himself 
altogether  from  Caesar’s  friendship,  and  had  gone  back 
to  the  fellowship  of  their  common  enemies, — enemies 
whom  he  himself  had  created  for  Caesar  during  the 
time  of  their  alliance.  At  the  same  time,  conscious  of 
the  scandal  of  those  two  legions  which  he  had  stopped 
on  their  destined  road  to  Asia  and  Syria  and  taken  into 
his  own  hand,  he  was  anxious  that  the  question  should 
be  referred  to  arms.  ”  Those  two  legions  are  very  greiv- 
ous  to  Caesar.  One  was  the  legion  which,  as  we  re¬ 
member,  Pompey  had  given  up  to  friendship, — and  the 


TEE  RUBICON  IS  PASSED. 


113 


Republic.  When,  in  the  beginning  of  these  contests 
between  the  two  rivals,  the  Senate  had  decided  on 
weakening  each  by  demanding  from  each  a  legion, 
Pompey  had  asked  Caesar  for  the  restitution  of  that 
which  he  had  so  kindly  lent.  Caesar,  too  proud  to 
refuse  payment  of  the  debt,  had  sent  that  to  his 
former  friend,  and  had  also  sent  another  legion,  as  de¬ 
manded  to  the  Senate.  They  were  required  nominally 
for  service  in  the  East,  and  now  were  in  the  hands 
of  him  who  had  been  Caesar’s  friend  but  had  become 
his  enemy.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Caesar  talks  of  the 
infamy  or  scandal  of  the  two  legions!  He  repeats 
his  complaint  as  to  the  two  legions  again  and  again. 

In  the  month  of  January  Caesar  was  at  Ravenna, 
just  north  of  the  Rubicon,  and  in  his  own  province. 
Messages  pass  between  liim  and  the  Senate,  and  he 
proposes  his  terms.  The  Senate  also  proposes  its  terms. 
He  must  lay  down  his  arms,  or  he  will  be  esteemed  an 
enemy  by  the  Republic.  All  Rome  is  disturbed.  The 
account  is  Caesar’s  account  but  we  imagine  that  Rome 
was  disturbed.  “  Soldiers  are  recruited  over  all  Italy; 
arms  are  demanded,  taxes  are  levied  on  the  municipal¬ 
ities,  and  money  is  taken  from  the  sacred  shrines;  all 
laws  divine  and  human  are  disregarded.  ”  Then  Caesar 
explains  to  his  soldiers  his  wrongs,  and  the  crimes  of 
Pompey.  He  tells  them  how  they,  under  his  guid¬ 
ance,  have  been  victorious,  how  under  him  they  have 
“  pacified  ”  all  Gaul  and  Germany,  and  he  calls  npon 
them  to  defend  him  who  has  enabled  them  to  do  such 
great  things.  He  has  but  one  legion  with  him,  but 
that  legion  declares  that  it  will  obey  him, — him  and 
the  tribunes  of  the  people,  some  of  whom,  acting  on 
Caesar’s  side,  have  come  over  from  Rome  to  Ravenna. 
We  can  appreciate  the  spirit  of  this  allusion  to  the 


114 


TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


tribunes,  so  that  there  may  seem  to  be  still  some  link 
between  Csesar  and  the  civic  authorities.  When  the 
soldiers  have  expressed  their  goodwill,  he  goes  to 
Ariminum,  and  so  the  Rubicon  is  passed. 

There  are  still  more  messages.  Csesar  expresses 
himself  as  greatly  grieved  that  he  should  be  subjected 
to  so  much  suspense,' nevertheless  he  is  'willing  to  suffer 
anything  for  the  Republic; — “omnia  pati  reipublicse 
causA”  Only  let  Pompey  go  to  his  province,  let  the 
legions  in  and  about  Rome  be  disbanded,  let  all  the 
old  forms  of  free  government  be  restored,  and  panic 
be  abolished,  and  then, — when  that  is  done, — all  diffi¬ 
culties  may  be  settled  in  a  few  minutes’  talking.  The 
consuls  and  Pompey  send  back  word  that  if  Caesar 
will  go  back  into  Gaul  and  dismiss  his  army,  Pompey 
shall  go  at  once  to  Spain.  But  Pompey  and  the 
consuls  with  their  troops  will  not  stir  till  Caesar  shall 
have  given  security  for  his  departure.  Each  demands 
that  the  other  shall  first  abandon  his  position.  Of 
course  all  these  messages  mean  nothing. 

Caesar,  complaining  bitterly  of  injustice,  sends  a  por¬ 
tion  of  his  small  army  still  farther  into  the  Roman 
territory.  Marc  Antony  goes  to  Arezzo  with  five 
cohorts,  and  Caesar  occupies  three  other  cities  with  a 
cohort  each.  The  marvel  is  that  he  was  not  attacked 
and  driven  back  by  Pompey.  We  may  probably  con¬ 
clude  that  the  soldiers,  though  under  the  command 
of  Pompey,  were  not  trustworthy  as  against  Caesar. 
As  Caesar  regrets  his  two  legions,  so  no  doubt  do  the 
two  legions  regret  their  commander.  At  any  rate,  the 
consular  forces  with  Pompey  and  the  consuls  and  a 
host  of  senators  retreat  southwards  to  Brundusium, — 
Brindisi, — intended  to  leave  Italy  by  the  port  which 
we  shall  all  use  before  long  when  we  go  eastwards. 


POMPEY  RETREATS . 


115 


During  this  retreat,  the  first  blood  in  the  civil  war  is 
spilt  at  Corfinium,  a  town  which,  if  it  now  stood  at  all, 
would  stand  in  the  Abruzzi.  Csesar  there  is  victor 
in  a  small  engagement,  and  obtains  possession  of  the 
town.  The  Pompeian  officers  whom  he  finds  there  he 
sends  away,  and  allows  them  even  to  carry  with  them 
money  which  he  believes  to  have  been  taken  from  the 
public  treasury.  Throughout  his  route  southward  the 
soldiers  of  Pompey,  who  had  heretofore  been  his 
soldiers, — return  to  him.  Pompey  and  the  consuls 
still  retreat,  and  still  Csesar  follows  them,  though 
Pompey  had  boasted,  when  first  warned  to  beware  of 
Csesar,  that  he  had  only  to  stamp  upon  Italian  soil  and 
legions  would  arise  from  the  earth  ready  to  obey  him. 
He  knows,  however,  that  away  from  Rome,  in  her 
provinces,  in  Macedonia  and  Achaia,  in  Asia  and  Cilicia, 
in  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Africa,  in  Mauritania  and  the 
two  Spains,  there  are  Roman  legions  which  as  yet 
know  no  Csesar.  It  may  be  better  for  Pompey  that 
he  should  stamp  his  foot  somewhere  out  of  Italy.  At 
any  rate  he  sends  the  obedient  consuls  and  his  attend¬ 
ant  senators  over  to  Dyrrachium  in  Illyria  with  a  part 
of  his  army,  and  follows  with  the  remainder  as  soon  as 
Csesar  is  at  his  heels.  Csesan  makes  an  effort  to  inter¬ 
cept  him  and  his  fleet,  but  in  that  he  fails.  Thus 
Pompey  deserts  Rome  and  Italy, — and  never  again 
sees  the  imperial  city  or  the  fair  land. 

Csesar  explains  to  us  why  he  does  not  follow  his 
enemy  and  endeavor  at  once  to  put  an  end  to  the 
struggle.  Pompey  is  provided  with  shipping  and  he 
is  not;  and  he  is  aware  that  the  force  of  Rome  lies  in 
her  provinces.  Moreover,  Rome  may  be  starved  by 
Pompey,  unless  he,  Csesar,  can  take  care  that  the  corn¬ 
growing  countries,  which  are  the  granaries  of  Rome, 


116  THE  CIVIL  WAB.—FIES1  BOOK 


are  left  free  for  the  use  of  the  city.  He  must  make 
sure  of  the  two  Gauls,  and  of  Sardinia,  and  of  Sicily, 
of  Africa  too,  if  it  may  be  possible.  He  must  win  to 
his  cause  the  two  Spains,  of  which  at  least  the  north¬ 
ern  province  was  at  present  devoted  to  Pompey.  He 
sends  one  lieutenant  to  Sardinia  with  a  legion,  another 
to  Sicily  with  three  legions, — and  from  Sicily  over 
into  Africa.  These  provinces  have  been  allotted  to 
partisans  of  Pompey;  but  Caesar  is  successful  with 
them  all.  To  Cato,  the  virtuous  man,  had  been  as¬ 
signed  the  government  of  Sicily;  but  Cato  finds  no 
Pompeian  army  ready  for  his  use,  and,  complaining 
bitterly  that  he  has  been  deceived  and  betrayed  by  the 
head  of  his  faction,  runs  away,  and  leaves  his  province 
to  Caesar’s  officers.  Caesar  determines  that  he  himself 
will  carry  the  war  into  Spain. 

But  he  found  it  necessary  first  to  go  to  Rome,  and 
Caesar,  in  his  account  of  what  he  did  there,  hardly  tells 
us  the  whole  truth.  We  quite  go  along  with  him 
when  he  explains  to  us  that,  having  collected  what 
sort  of  a  Senate  he  could, — for  Pompey  had  taken  away 
with  him  such  senators  as  he  could  induce  to  follow 
him, — and  having  proposed  to  this  meagre  Senate  that 
ambassadors  should  be  sent  to  Pompey,  the  Senate 
accepted  his  suggestion;  but  that  nobody  could  be  in¬ 
duced  to  go  on  such  an  errand.  Pompey  had  already 
declared  that  all  who  remained  in  Rome  were  his  ene¬ 
mies.  And  it  may  probably  be  true  that  Caesar,  as  he 
says,  found  a  certain  tribune  of  the  people  at  Rome 
who  opposed  him  in  all  that  he  was  doing,  though  we 
should  imagine  that  the  opposition  was  not  violent. 
But  his  real  object  in  going  to  Rome  was  to  lay  hand 
on  the  treasure  of  the  Republic, — the  sanctius  aerari- 
um, — which  was  kept  in  the  temple  of  Saturn  for  special 


CJESAR  TOUCHES  AT  MARSEILLES .  117 


emergencies  of  State.  That  he  should  have  taken  this 
we  do  not  wonder; — but  we  do  wonder  that  he  should 
have  taken  the  trouble  to  say  that  he  did  not  do  so. 
He  professes  that  he  was  so  hindered  by  that  vexatious 
tribune,  that  he  could  not  accomplish  the  purposes  for 
which  he  had  come.  But  he  certainly  did  take  the 
money,  and  we  cannot  doubt  but  that  he  went  to  Rome 
especially  to  get  it. 

Caesar,  on  his  way  to  Spain,  goes  to  Marseilles 
which,  under  the  name  of  Massilia,  was  at  this  time, 
as  it  is  now,  the  most  thriving  mercantile  port  on  the 
Mediterranean.  It  belonged  to  the  province  of  Further 
Gaul,  but  it  was  in  fact  a  colony  of  Greek  traders.  Its 
possession  was  now  necessary  to  Caesar.  The  magis¬ 
trates  of  the  town,  when  called  upon  for  their  adhesion, 
gave  a  most  sensible  answer.  They  protest  that  they 
are  very  fond  of  Caesar,  and  very  fond  of  Pompey. 
They  don’t  understand  all  these  affars  of  Rome,  and 
regret  that  two  such  excellent  men  should  quarrel.  In  the 
mean  time  they  prefer  to  hold  their  own  town.  Caesar 
speaks  of  this  decision  as  an  injury  to  himself,  and  is 
instigated  by  such  wrongs  against  him  to  besiege  the 
city,  which  he  .does  both  by  land  and  sea,  leaving 
officers  there  for  the  purpose,  and  going  on  himself  to 
Spain. 

At  this  time  all  Spain  was  held  by  three  officers,  de¬ 
voted  to  the  cause  of  Pompey,  though,  from  what  has 
gone  before,  it  is  clear  that  Caesar  fears  nothing  from 
the  south.  Afranius  commanded  in  the  north  and 
east,  holding  the  southern  spurs  of  the  Pyrenees. 
Petreius,  who  was  stationed  in  Lusitania,  in  the  south¬ 
west,  according  to  the  agreement,  hurries  up  to  the 
assistance  of  Afranius  as  soon  as  Caesar  approaches. 
The  Pompeian  and  Caesarian  armies  are  brought  into 


118  TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


close  quarters  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ilerda  (Lerida), 
on  the  little  river  Sicoris,  or  Segre,  which  runs  into 
the  Ebro.  They  are  near  the  mountains  here,  and  the 
nature  of  the  fighting  is  controlled  by  the  rapidity  and 
size  of  the  rivers,  and  the  inequality  of  the  ground. 
Caesar  describes  the  campaign  with  great  minuteness, 
imparting  to  it  a  wonderful  interest  by  the  clearness  of 
his  narrative.  Afranius  and  Petreius  hold  the  town  of 
Ilerda,  which  is  full  of  provisions.  Caesar  is  very 
much  pressed  by  want,  as  the  corn  and  grass  have  not 
yet  grown,  and  the  country  supplies  of  the  former 
year  are  almost  exhausted.  So  great  are  his  difficul¬ 
ties,  that  tidings  reach  Rome  that  Afranius  has  con¬ 
quered  him.  Hearing  this,  many  who  were  still  cling¬ 
ing  to  the  city,  doubtful  as  to  the  side  they  would  take, 
go  away  to  Pompey.  But  Caesar  at  lasts  manages  to 
make  Ilerda  too  hot  for  the  Pompeian  generals.  Ho 
takes  his  army  over  one  river  in  coracles,  such  as  he 
had  seen  in  Britain ;  he  turns  the  course  of  another  ; 
fords  a  third,  breaking  the  course  of  the  stream  by  the 
bulk  of  his  horses ;  and  bridges  a  fourth.  Afranius  and 
Petreius  find  that  they  must  leave  Ilerda,  and  escape 
over  the  Ebro  among  the  half-barbarous  tribe  further 
south,  and  make  their  way,  if  possible,  among  the 
Celtibri, — getting  out  of  Aragon  into  Castile,  as  the 
division  was  made  in  after-ages.  Caesar  gives  us  as 
one  reason  for  this  intended  march  on  the  part  of  his 
enemies,  that  Pompey  was  well  known  by  those  tribes, 
but  that  the  name  of  Caesar  was  a  name  as  yet  obscure  to 
the  barbarians.  It  was  not  however,  easy  for  Afran¬ 
ius  to  pass  over  the  Ebro  without  Caesar’s  leave,  and 
Caesar  will  by  no  means  give  him  leave.  He  intercepts 
the  Pompeians,  and  now  turns  upon  them  that  terrible 
engine  of  want  from  which  he  had  suffered  so  much. 


CAESAR  IN  TEE  NORTH  OF  SPAIN  119 


He  continues  so  to  drive  them  about,  still  north  of  the 
Ebro,  that  they  can  get  at  no  water;  and  at  last  they 
are  compelled  to  surrender. 

During  the  latter  days  of  this  contest  the  Afranians, 
as  they  are  called — Roman  legionaries,  as  are  the  sol¬ 
diers  of  Caesar — fraternize  with  their  brethren  in  Caesar’s 
camp,  and  there  is  something  of  free  intercourse  be¬ 
tween  the  two  Roman  armies.  The  upshot  is  that  the 
soldiers  of  Afranius  resolve  to  give  themselves  up  to 
Caesar,  bargaining,  however,  that  their  own  generals 
shall  be  secure.  Afranius  is  willing  enough;  but  his 
brother-general,  Petreius,  with  more  of  the  Roman  at 
heart,  will  not  hear  of  it.  We  shall  hear  hereafter  the 
strange  fate  of  this  Petreius.  He  stops  the  conspiracy 
with  energy,  and  forces  from  his  own  men,  and  even  from 
Afranius,  an  oath  against  surrender.  He  orders  that  all 
Caesar’s  soldiers  found  in  their  camp  shall  be  killed,  and, 
as  Caesar  tells  us,  brings  back  the  atfair  to  the  old  form 
of  war.  But  it  is  all  of  no  avail.  The  Afranians  are  so 
driven  by  the  want  of  water,  that  the  two  generals  are  at 
last  compelled  to  capitulate  and  lay  down  their  arms. 

Five  words  which  are  used  by  Caesar  in  the  descrip¬ 
tion  of  this  affair  give  us  a  strong  instance  of  his  con¬ 
ciseness  in  the  use  of  words,  and  of  the  capability  for 
conciseness  which  the  Latin  language  affords.  “Pre- 
mebantur  Afraniani  pabulatione,  aquabantur  aegre.” 
“The  soldiers  of  Afranius  were  much  distressed  in  the 
matter  of  forage,  and  could  obtain  water  only  with  great 
difficulty.”  These  twenty  words  translate  those  five 
which  Caesar  uses,  perhaps  with  fair  accuracy ;  but  many 
more  than  twenty  would  probably  have  been  used  by 
any  English  historian  in  dealing  with  the  same  facts. 

Caesar  treats  his  compatriots  with  the  utmost  gen¬ 
erosity.  So  many  conquered  Gauls  he  would  have  sold 


120  THE  CIVIL  WAR— FIRST  BOOK. 


as  slaves,  slaughtering  their  leaders,  or  he  would  have 
cut  off  their  hands,  or  have  driven  them  down  upon 
the  river  and  have  allowed  them  to  perish  in  the 
waters.  But  his  conquered  foes  are  Roman  soldiers, 
and  he  simply  demands  that  the  army  of  Afranius 
shall  be  disbanded,  and  that  the  leaders  of  it  shall  go, 
— whither  they  please.  He  makes  them  a  speech  in 
which  he  explains  how  badly  they  have  treated  him. 
Nevertheless  he  will  hurt  no  one.  He  has  borne  it 
all,  and  will  bear  it,  patiently.  Let  the  generals  only 
leave  the  Province,  and  let  the  army  which  they  have 
led  be  disbanded.  He  will  not  keep  a  soldier  who 
does  not  wish  to  stay  with  him,  and  will  even  pay 
those  whom  Afranius  has  been  unable  to  pay  out  of 
his  own  funds.  Those  who  have  houses  and  land  in 
Spain  may  remain  there.  Those  who  have  none  he 
will  first  feed  and  afterwards  take  back,  if  not  to  Italy, 
at  any  rate  to  the  borders  of  Italy.  The  property 
which  his  own  soldiers  have  taken  from  them  in  the 
chances  of  war  shall  be  restored,  and  he  out  of  his  own 
pocket  will  compensate  his  own  men.  He  performs 
his  promise,  and  takes  all  those  who  do  not  choose  to 
remain,  to  the  banks  of  the  Var,  which  divides  the  Prov¬ 
ince  from  Italy,  and  there  sets  them  down,  full,  no 
doubt,  of  gratitude  to  their  conqueror.  Never  was 
there  such  clemency, — or,  we  may  say,  better  policy! 
Caesar’s  whole  campaign  in  Spain  had  occupied  him 
only  forty  days. 

In  the  meantime  Decimus  Brutus,  to  whom  we 
remember  that  Caesar  had  given  the  command  of  the 
ships  which  he  prepared  against  the  Veneti  in  the  west 
of  Gaul,  and  who  was  hereafter  to  be  one  of  those  who 
slew  him  in  the  Capitol,  obtains  a  naval  victory  over 
the  much  more  numerous  fleet  of  the  Massilians. 


CAESAR  IN  THE  NORTH  OF  SPAIN  121 


They  had  prepared  seventeen  big  ships, — “naves 
longae”  they  are  called  by  Caesar, — and  of  these 
Brutus  either  destroys  or  takes  nine.  In  his  next 
book  Caesar  proceeds  to  tell  us  how  things  went  on  at 
Marseilles  both  by  sea  and  land  after  this  affair. 


CHAPTER  X. 


SECOND  BOOK  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — THE  TAKING  OF  MAR¬ 
SEILLES. — VARRO  IN  THE  SOUTH  OF  SPAIN. — THE 
FATE  OF  CURIO  BEFORE  UTICA. — B.C.  49. 

In  bis  chronicle  of  the  Gallic  war,  Caesar  in  each  book 
completed  the  narrative  of  a  year’s  campaign.  In 
treating  of  the  civil  war  he  devotes  the  first  and 
second  books  to  the  doings  of  one  year.  There  are 
three  distinct  episodes  of  the  year’s  campaign  narrated 
in  the  second; — the  taking  of  Marseilles,  the  subju¬ 
gation  of  the  southern  province  of  Spain, — if  that  can 
be  said  to  be  subjugated  which  gave  itself  up  very 
readily, — and  the  destruction  of  a  Roman  army  in 
Africa  under  the  hands  of  a  barbarian  king.  But  of 
all  Csesar’s  writings  it  is  perhaps  the  least  interesting, 
as  it  tells  us  but  little  of  what  Caesar  did  himself, — 
and  in  fact  contains  chiefly  Caesar  records  of  the 
doings  of  his  lieutenants  by  sea  and  land. 

He  begins  by  telling  us  of  the  enormous  exertions 
made  both  by  the  besiegers  and  by  the  besieged  at  Mas- 
silia,  which  town  was  now  held  by  Domitius  on  the 
part  of  Pompey,— to  supplement  whom  at  sea  cer¬ 
tain  Nasidius  was  sent  with  a  large  fleet.  Young 
Brutus,  as  will  be  remembered,  was  attacking  the  har¬ 
bor  on  behalf  of  Csesar,  and  had  already  obtained  a 


THE  SIEGE  OF  MARSEILLES. 


123 


victory  over  the  Massilians  before  Nasidius  came  up ; 
and  Trebonius,  also  on  the  part  of  Caesar,  was  besieg¬ 
ing  the  town  from  the  land.  This  Decimus  Brutus 
was  one  of  those  conspirators  who  afterwards  conspired 
against  Caesar  and  slew  him,  —  and  Trebonius  was 
another  of  the  number.  The  wise  Greeks  of  the 
city, — more  wise  than  fortunate,  however, — had  ex¬ 
plained  to  Caesar  when  he  first  expressed  his  wish  to 
have  the  town  on  his  side,  that  really  to  them  there 
was  no  difference  between  Pompey  and  Caesar,  both  of 
whom  they  loved  with  all  their  hearts, — but  they  had 
been  compelled  to  become  partisans  of  Pompey,  the 
Pompeian  general  Domitius  being  the  first  to  enter 
their  town;  and  now  they  find  themselves  obliged  to 
fight  as  Pompeians  in  defence  of  their  wealth  and  their 
homes.  Thus  driven  by  necessity,  they  fight  well  and  do 
their  very  best  to  favor  the  side  which  we  must  hence¬ 
forward  call  that  of  the  Republic  as  against  an  autocrat; 
— for,  during  this  siege  of  Marseilles,  Caesar  had  been 
appointed  Dictator,  and  a  law  to  that  effect  had  been 
passed  at  Rome,  where  the  passing  of  such  a  law  was  no 
doubt  easy  enough  in  the  absence  of  Pompey,  of  the  con 
suls,  and  of  all  the  senators  who  werePompey’s  friends. 

The  Massilians  had  now  chosen  their  side,  and  they 
do  their  very  best.  We  are  told  that  the  Cessarean 
troops,  from  the  high  ground  on  which  Trebonius  had 
placed  his  camp,  could  look  down  into  the  town,  and 
could  see  “how  all  the  youth  who  had  been  left  in  the 
city,  and  all  the  elders  with  their  children  and  wives, 
and  the  sentinels  of  the  city,  either  stretched  their 
hands  to  heaven  from  the  walls,  or,  entering  the 
temples  of  the  immortal  gods,  and  throwing  themselves 
before  their  sacred  images,  prayed  that  the  heavenly 
powers  would  give  them  victory.  Nor  was  there  one 


124  THE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOK 


among  them  who  did  not  believe  that  on  the  result 
of  that  day  depended  all  that  they  had,” — namely, 
liberty,  property  and  life;  for  the  Massilians,  doubt¬ 
less,  had  heard  of  Avaricum,  of  Alesia,  and  of  Uxello- 
dunum.  ‘‘When  the  battle  was  begun,”  says  Caesar, 
“the  Massilians  failed  not  at  all  in  valor;  but,' 
mindful  of  the  lessons  they  had  just  received  from  their 
townsmen,  fought  with  the  belief  that  the  present  was 
their  only  opportunity  of  doing  aught  for  their  own  pres¬ 
ervation;  and  that  to  those  who  should  fall  in  battle, 
loss  of  life  would  only  come  a  little  sooner  than  to  the 
others,  who  would  have  to  undergo  the  same  fate, 
should  the  city  be  taken.”  Caesar,  as  he  wrote  this, 
doubtless  thought  of  what  he  had  done  in  Gaul  when 
policy  demanded  from  him  an  extremity  of  cruelty;  and, 
so  writing,  he  enhanced  the  clemency  with  which,  as  he 
is  about  to  tell  us,  he  afterwards  treated  the  Massilians. 
When  the  time  came  it  did  not  suit  him  to  depopulate 
a  rich  town,  the  trade  of  whose  merchants  was  benefi¬ 
cial  both  to  Borne  and  to  the  Province.  He  is  about 
to  tell  us  of  his  mercy,  and  therefore  explains  to  us 
beforehand  how  little  was  mercy  expected  from  him. 
We  feel  that  every  line  he  writes  is  weighed,  though 
the  time  for  such  weighing  must  have  been  very  short 
with  one  whose  hands  were  so  full  as  were  always  the 
hands  of  Caesar. 

Nasidius,  whom  we  may  call  Pompey’s  admiral, 
was  of  no  use  at  all.  The  Massilians,  tempted  by  his 
coming,  attack  bravely  the  ship  which  bears  the  flag 
of  young  Brutus;  but  young  Brutus  is  too  quick  for 
them,  and  the  unhappy  Massilians  run  two  of  their 
biggest  vessels  against  each  other  in  their  endeavor 
to  pin  that  of  the  Caesarean  admiral  between  them. 
The  Massilian  fleet  is  utterly  dispersed.  Five  are 


TEE  SIEGE  OF  MARSEILLES. 


125 


sunk,  four  are  taken:  one  gets  off  with  Nasidius,  who 
runs  away,  making  no  effort  to  fight;  who  has  keen 
sent  there, — so  Caesar  hints, — by  Pompey,  not  to  give 
assistance,  but  only  to  pretend  to  give  assistance. 
One  ship  gets  back  into  the  harbor  with  the  sad 
tidings;  and  the  Massilians — despairing  only  for  a 
moment  at  the  first  blush  of  the  bad  news — determine 
that  their  walls  may  still  be  defended. 

The  town  was  very  well  supplied  with  such  things 
as  were  needed  for  defence,  the  people  being  a  provi¬ 
dent  people,  well  instructed  and  civilized,  with  means 
at  their  command.  We  are  told  of  great  poles  twelve 
feet  long,  with  sharp  iron  heads  to  them,  which  the 
besiegers  could  throw  with  such  force  from  the  engines 
on  their  walls  as  to  drive  them  through  four  tiers  of 
the  wicked  crates  or  stationary  shields  which  the  Caesa¬ 
reans  built  up  for  their  protection, — believiog  that  no 
force  could  drive  a  weapon  through  them.  As  we 
read  of  this  we  cannot  but  think  of  Armstrong  and 
Whitfield  guns,  and  iron  plates,  and  granite  batteries, 
and  earthworks.  These  terrible  darts,  thrown  from 
“balistae,”  are  very  sore  upon  the  Caesareans;  they 
therefore  contrive  an  immense  tower,  so  high  that  it 
cannot  be  reached  by  any  weapon,  so  built  that  no 
wood  or  material  subject  to  fire  shall  be  on  the  out¬ 
side, — which  they  erect  story  by  story,  of  very  great 
strength.  And  as  they  raise  this  step  by  step,  each 
story  is  secured  against  fire  and  against  the  enemy. 
The  reader, — probably  not  an  engineer  himself, — is 
disposed  to  think  as  he  struggles  through  this  minute 
description  of  the  erection  which  Caesar  gives,  and 
endeavors  to  realize  the  way  in  w’hich  it  is  done,  that 
Caesar  must  himself  have  served  specially  as  an  engineer. 
But  in  truth  he  was  not  at  this  siege  himself,  and  had 


126  TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOK. 


nothing  to  do  with  the  planning  of  the  tower,  and 
must  in  this  instance  at  least  have  got  a  written  de¬ 
scription  from  his  officer, — as  he  probably  did  before 
when  he  built  the  memorable  bridge  over  the  Rhine. 
And  when  the  tower  is  finished,  they  make  a  long 
covered  way  or  shed, — musculum  or  muscle  Caesar  calls 
it;  and  with  this  they  form  for  themselves  a  passage 
from  the  big  tower  to  a  special  point  in  the  walls  of 
the  town.  This  muscle  is  so  strong  with  its  sloping 
roof  that  nothing  throwm  upon  it  will  break  or  burn  it. 
The  Massilians  try  tubs  of  flaming  pitch,  and  great  frag¬ 
ments  of  rock;  but  these  simply  slip  to  the  ground,  and 
are  pulled  away  with  long  poles  and  forks.  And  the 
Caesareans,  from  the  height  of  their  great  tower,  have 
so  terrible  an  advantage!  The  Massilians  cannot  de¬ 
fend  their  wall,  and  a  breach  is  made,  or  almost  made. 

The  Massilians  can  do  no  more.  The  very  gods  are 
against  them.  So  they  put  on  the  habit  of  supplicants, 
and  go  forth  to  the  conquerors,  They  will  give  their 
city  to  Caesar.  Caesar  is  expected.  Will  Trebonius 
be  so  good  as  to  wait  till  Caesar  comes?  If  Trebonius 
should  proceed  with  his  work  so  that  the  soldiers 
should  absolutely  get  into  the  town,  then;— Trebonius 
knows  very  well  what  would  happen  then.  A  little 
delay  cannot  hurt.  Nothing  shall  be  done  till  Caesar 
comes.  As  it  happens,  Caesar  has  already  especially 
ordered  that  the  city  shall  be  spared;  aucl  a  kind  of 
truce  is  made,  to  endure  till  Caesar  shall  come  and 
take  possession.  Trebonius  has  a  difficulty  in  keeping 
his  soldiers  from  the  plunder;  but  he  does  restrain 
them,  and  besiegers  and  besieged  are  at  rest,  and  wait 
for  Caesar. 

But  these  Massilians  are  a  crafty  people.  The 
Caesarean  soldiers,  having  agreed  to  wait,  take  it 


THE  SIEGE  OF  MARSEILLES. 


127 


easily,  and  simply  amuse  themselves  in  these  days  of 
waiting.  When  they  are  quite  off  their  guard,  and  a 
high  wind  favors  the  scheme,  the  Massilians  rush  out 
and  succeed  in  burning  the  tower,  and  the  muscle,  and 
the  rampart,  and  the  sheds,  and  all  the  implements. 
Even  though  the  tower  was  built  with  brick,  it  burns 
freely, — so  great  is  the  wind.  Then  Trebonius  goes  to 
work,  and  does  it  all  again.  Because  there  is  no  more 
wood  left  round  about  the  camp,  he  makes  a  rampart 
of  a  new  kind, — hitherto  unheard  of, — with  bricks. 
Doubtless  the  Caesarean  soldiers  had  first  to  make  the 
bricks,  and  we  can  imagine  what  were  their  feelings 
in  reference  to  the  Massilians.  But  however  that  may 
be,  they  worked  so  well  and  so  hard  that  the  Massilians 
soon  see  that  their  late  success  is  of  no  avail.  Nothing 
is  left  to  them.  Neither  perfidy  nor  valor  can  avail 
them,  and  now  again  they  give  themselves  up.  They 
are  starved  and  suffering  from  pestilence,  their  fortifi¬ 
cations  are  destroyed,  they  have  no  hope  of  aid  from 
without, — and  now  they  give  themselves  up, — intend¬ 
ing  no  fraud.  “  Sese  dedere  sine  fraude  constituunt.” 
Domitius,  the  Pompeian  general,  manages  to  escape  in 
a  ship.  He  starts  with  three  ships,  but  the  one  in 
which  he  himself  sails  alone  escapes  the  hands  of 
“ young”  Brutus.  Surely  now  will  Marseilles  be 
treated  with  worse  treatment  than  that  which  fell  on 
the  Gaulish  cities.  But  such  is  by  no  means  Caesar’s 
will.  Caesar  takes  their  public  treasure  and  their 
ships,  and  reminding  them  that  he  spares  them  rather 
for  their  name  and  old  character  than  for  any  merits 
of  theirs  shown  towards  him,  leaves  two  legions  among 
them,  and  goes  to  Home.  At  Avaricum,  when  the 
Gauls  had  fought  to  defend  their  own  liberties,  he  had 
destroyed  everybody; — at  Alesia  he  had  decreed  the 


128  THE  CIVIL  WAR— SECOND  BOOK \ 


death  of  every  inhabitant  when  they  had  simply  asked 
him  leave  to  pass  through  his  camp;  — at  Uxellodunum 
he  had  cut  off  the  hands  and  poked  out  the  eyes  of 
Gauls  who  had  dared  to  fight  for  their  country.  But 
the  Gauls  were  barbarians  whom  it  was  necessary  that 
Csesar  should  pacify.  The  Massilians  were  Greeks, 
and  a  civilized  people, — and  might  be  useful. 

Before  coming  on  to  Marseilles  there  had  been  a 
little  more  for  Csesar  to  do  in  Spain,  where,  as  was 
told  in  the  last  chapter,  he  had  just  compelled  Afranius 
and  Petreius  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  disband  their 
legions.  Joined  with  them  had  been  a  third  Pompeian 
general,  one  Varro,— a  distinguished  man,  though  not, 
perhaps,  a  great  general, — of  whom  Caesar  tells  us  that 
with  his  Roman  policy  he  veered  between  Pompeian 
and  Caesarean  tactics  till,  unfortunately  for  himself, 
he  declared  for  Pompey  and  the  wrong  side,  when 
he  heard  that  Afranius  was  having  his  own  way  in 
the  - neighborhood  of  Lerida.  But  Varro  is  in  the 
south  of  Spain,  in  Andalusia,— or  Bsetica,  as  it  was 
then  called, — and  in  this  southern  province  of  Spain 
it  seems  that  Caesar’s  cause  was  more  popular  than  that 
of  Pompey.  Caesar,  at  any  rate,  has  but  little  difficulty 
with  Varro.  The  Pompeian  officer  is  deserted  by  his 
legions,  and  gives  himself  up  very  quickly.  Caesar 
does  not  care  to  tell  us  what  he  did  with  Varro,  but  we 
know  that  he  treated  his  brother  Roman  with  the  utmost 
courtesy.  Varro  was  a  very  learned  man,  and  a  friend 
of  Cicero’s,  and  one  who  wrote  books,  and  was  a  credit 
to  Rome  as  a  man  of  letters  if  not  as  a  general.  We  are 
told  that  he  wrote  490  volumes,  and  that  he  lived  to  be 
eighty -eight,— a  fate  very  uncommon  with  Romans  who 
meddled  with  public  affairs  in  these  days.  Csesar  made 
everything  smooth  in  the  south  of  Spain,  restoring  the 


CJEJSAR  IN  THE  80  V TH  OF  SPAIN  129 


money  and  treasures  which  Varro  had  taken  from  the 
towns,  and  giving  thanks  to  everybody.  Then  he  went  on 
over  the  Pyrenees  to  Marseilles,  and  made  things  smooth 
there. 

But  in  the  mean  time  things  were  not  at  all  smooth 
in  Africa.  The  name  of  Africa  was  at  this  time  given 
to  a  small  province  belonging  to  the  Republic,  lying  to 
the  east  of  Numidia,  in  which  Carthage  had  stood 
when  Carthage  was  a  city,  containing  that  'promontory 
which  juts  out  towards  Sicily,  and  having  Utica  as 
its  Roman  capitol.  It  has  been  already  said  that 
when  Caesar  determined  to  gain  possession  of  certain 
provinces  of  the  Republic  before  he  followed  Pompey 
across  the  Adriatic,  he  sent  a  lieutenant  with  three 
legions  into  Sicily,  desiring  him  to  go  on  to  Africa  as 
soon  as  things  should  have  been  arranged  in  the  island 
after  the  Caesarean  fashion.  The  Sicilian  matter  is 
not  very  troublesome,  as  Cato,  the  virtuous  man,  in 
wrhose  hands  the  government  of  the  island  had  been 
intrusted  on  behalf  of  the  Republic,  leaves  it  on  the 
arrival  of  the  Caesarean  legions,  complaining  bitterly  of 
Pompey’s  conduct.  Then  Caesar’s  lieutenant  goes  over 
to  Africa  with  two  legions,  as  commanded,  proposing 
to  his  army  the  expulsion  of  one  Attius  Yarus,  who 
had,  according  to  Caesar’s  story,  taken  irregular  pos¬ 
session  of  the  province,  keeping  it  on  behalf  of  Pom¬ 
pey,  but  not  allowing  the  governor  appointed  by  the 
Republic  so  much  as  to  put  his  foot  on  the  shore. 
This  lieutenant  was  a  great  favorite  of  Caesar,  by 
name  Curio,  who  had  been  elected  tribune  of  the 
people  just  when  the  Senate  was  making  its  attempt  to 
recall  Caesar  from  his  command  in  Gaul.  In  that 
emergency,  Curio  as  tribune  had  been  of  service  to 
Caesar,  and  Caesar  loved  the  young  man.  He  was  one 


130  THE  CIVIL  WAR— SECOND  BOOK. 


of  those  who,  though  noble  by  birth,  had  flung  them¬ 
selves  among  the  people,  as  Catiline  had  done  and 
Clodius, — unsteady,  turbulent,  unscrupulous,  vicious, 
needy,  fond  of  pleasure,  rapacious,  but  well  educated, 
brave,  and  clever.  Caesar  himself  had  been  such  a 
man  in  his  youth,  and  could  easily  forgive  such  faults 
in  the  character  of  one  who,  in  addition  to  such  virtues 
as  have  been  named,  possessed  that  farther  and  greater 
virtue  of  loving  Caesar.  Caesar  expected  great  things 
from  Curio,  and  trusted  him  thoroughly.  Curio,  with 
many  ships  and  his  two  legions,  lands  in  Africa,  and 
prepares  to  win  the  province  for  his  great  friend.  He 
does  obtain  some  little  advantage,  so  that  he  is  called 
“Imperator”  by  his  soldiers, — a  name  not  given  to  a 
general  till  he  has  been  victorious  in  the  field;  but  it 
seems  clear,  from  Caesar’s  telling  of  the  story,  that 
Curio’s  own  officers  and  own  soldiers  distrusted  him, 
and  were  doubtful  whether  they  would  follow  him,  or 
would  take  possession  of  the  ships  and  return  to  Sicily; 
— or  would  go  over  to  Attius  Yarus,  who  had  been  their 
commander  in  Italy  before  they  had  deserted  from 
Pompey  to  Caesar.  A  council  of  war  is  held,  and  there 
is  much  doubt.  It  is  not  only  or  chiefly  of  Attius 
Yarus,  their  Roman  enemy,  that  they  are  afraid;  but 
there  is  Juba  in  their  neighborhood,  the  king  of 
Numidia,  who  will  certainly  fight  for  Yarus  and 
against  Curio.  He  is  Pompey’s  declared  friend,  and 
equally  declared  as  Caesar’s  foe.  He  has,  too,  special 
grounds  of  quarrel  against  Curio  himself;  and  if  he 
comes  in  person  with  his  army, — bringing  such  an 
army  as  he  can  bring  if  he  pleases, — it  will  certainly 
go  badly  with  Curio,  should  Curio  be  distant  from  his 
camp.  Then  Curio,  not  content  with  his  council  of 
war,  and  anxious  that  his  soldiers  should  support  him 


IRE  STORY  OF  CURIO. 


131 


in  his  desire  to  fight,  makes  a  speech  to  the  legion¬ 
aries.  We  must  remember,  of  course,  that  Caesar  gives 
us  the  words  of  this  speech,  and  that  Caesar  must 
himself  have  put  the  words  together. 

It  is  begun  in  the  third  person.  He, — that  is  Curio, 
— tells  the  men  how  useful  they  were  to  Caesar  at  Cor- 
finium,  the  town  at  which  they  went  over  from  Pom- 
pey  to  Caesar.  But  in  the  second  sentence  he  breaks 
into  the  first  person  and  puts  the  very  words  into 
Curio’s  mouth.  “  For  you  and  your  services,”  he  says 
“were  copied  by  all  the  towns;  nor  is  it  without  cause 
that  Caesar  thinks  kindly  of  you,  and  the  Pompeians 
unkindly.  For  Pompey,  having  lost  no  battle,  but 
driven  by  the  result  of  your  deed,  fled  from  Italy.  Me» 
whom  Caesar  holds  most  dear,  and  Sicily  and  Africa 
without  which  he  cannot  hold  Rome  and  Italy,  Caesar 
hats  intrusted  to  your  honor.  There  are  some  who 
advise  you  to  desert  me, — for  what  can  be  more  desir¬ 
able  to  such  men  than  they  at  the  same  time  should 
circumvent  me,  and  fasten  upon  you  a  foul  crime? 

.  .  .  .  But  you, — have  you  not  heard  of  the 

things  done  by  Caesar  in  Spain, — two  armies  beaten,  two 
generals  conquered,  two  provinces  gained,  and  all  this 
done  in  forty  days  from  that  on  which  Caesar  first  saw 
his  enemy?  can  those  who,  uninjured,  were  unable  to 
stand  against  him,  resist  him  now  that  they  are  con¬ 
quered?  And  you,  who  followed  Caesar  when  victory 
on  his  side  was  uncertain,  now  that  fortune  has 
declared  herself,  will  you  go  over  to  the  conquered 
side  when  you  are  about  to  realize  the  reward  of  your 
zeal?  ....  But  perhaps,  though  you  love  Caesar, 
you  distrust  me.  I  wilt  not  say  much  of  my  own 
deserts  towards  you, — which  are  indeed  less  as  yet 
than  I  had  wished  or  you  had  expected.  ”  Then,  having 


132  THE  CIVIL  WAR— SECOND  BOOK. 


thus  declared  that  he  will  not  speak  of  himself,  he 
does  venture  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject.  “But 
why  should  I  pass  over  my  own  work,  and  the  result 
that  has  been  as  yet  achieved,  and  my  own  fortune  in 
.  war?  Is  it  displeasing  to  you  that  I  brought  over  the 
whole  army,  safe,  without  losing  a  ship?  That,  as  I 
came,  at  my  first  onslaught,  I  should  have  dispersed 
the  fleet  of  the  enemy?  That,  in  two  days,  I  should 
have  been  twice  victorious  with  my  cavalry;  that  I 
should  have  cut  out  two  hundred  transports  from  the 
enemy’s  harbor;  that  I  should  have  so  harassed  the 
enemy  that  neither  by  land  nor  sea  could  they  get  food 
to  supply  their  wants?  Will  it  please  .you  to  repudiate 
such  fortune  and  such  guidance,  and  to  connect  your¬ 
self  with  the  disgrace  at  Corfinium,  the  flight  from 
Italy,” — namely,  Pompey’s  flight  to  Dyrrachium, — 
“the  surrender  of  Spain,  and  the  evils  of  this  African 
war?  I  indeed  have  wished  to  be  called  Csesar’s  sol¬ 
dier,  and  you  have  called  me  your  Imperator.  If  it 
repents  you  of  having  done  so,  I  give  you  back  the 
compliment.  Give  me  back  my  own  name,  lest  it  seem 
that  in  scorn  you  have  called  me  by  that  title  of 
honor.” 

This  is  very  spirited;  and  the  merely  rhetorical 
assertion  by  Caesar  that  Curio  thus  spoke  to  his  soldiers 
is  in  itself  interesting,  as  showing  us  the  way  in 
which  the  legionaries  were  treated  by  their  command¬ 
ers,  and  in  which  the  greatest  general,  of  that  or 
of  any  age,  thought  it  natural  that  a  leader  should 
address  his  troops.  It  is  of  value,  also,  as  showing 
the  difficulty  of  keeping  any  legion  true  to  either  side 
in  a  civil  war,  in  which,  on  either  side,  the  men  must 
fight  for  a  commander  they  had  learned  to  respect, 
and  against  a  commander  they  respected, — the  com- 


THE  STORY  OF  CURIO. 


133 


mander  in  each  case  being  a  Roman  Imperator. 
Curio,  too,  as  we  know,  was  a  man  who  on  such  an 
occasion  could  use  words.  But  that  he  used  the  words 
here  put  into  his  mouth,  or  any  words  like  them,  is 
very  improbable.  Csesar  was  anxious  to  make  the  best 
apology  he  could  for  the  gallant  young  friend  who 
had  perished  in  his  cause,  and  has  shown  his  love 
by  making  the  man  he ‘loved  memorable  to  all  pos¬ 
terity. 

But  before  the  dark  hour  comes  upon  him  the  young 
man  has  a  gleam  of  success,  which,  had  he  really 
spoken  the  words  put  into  his  mouth  by  Csesar,  would 
have  seemed  to  justify  them.  He  attacks  the  army  of 
his  fellow-Roman,  Yarus,  and  beats  it,  driving  it  back 
into  Utica.  He  then  resolves  to  besiege  the  town, 
and  Caesar  implies  that  he  would  have  been  successful 
through  the  Caesarean  sympathies  of  the  townsmen, — 
had  it  not  been  for  the  approach  of  the  terrible  Juba. 
Then  comes  a  rumor  which  reaches  Curio, — and 
which  reaches  Yarus  too  inside  the  town, — that  the 
Numidian  king  is  hurrying  to  the  scene  with  all  his 
forces.  He  has  finished  another  affair  that  he  had  on 
hand,  and  can  now  look  to  his  Roman  friends, — and 
to  his  Roman  enemies.  Juba  craftily  sends  forward 
his  prsefect,  or  lieutenant,  Sabura,  with  a  small  force 
of  cavalry,  and  Curio  is  led  to  imagine  that  Juba  has 
not  come,  and  that  Sabura  has  been  sent  with  scanty 
aid  to  the  relief  of  Yarus.  Surely  he  can  give  a  good 
account  of  Sabura  and  that  small  body  of  Numidian 
horsemen.  We  see  from  the  very  first  that  Curio  is 
doomed.  Csesar,  in  a  few  touching  words,  makes  his 
apology.  ‘  ‘  The  young  man’s  youth  had  much  to  do 
with  it,  and  his  high  spirit;  his  former  success,  too, 
and  his  own  faith  in  his  own  good  fortune.”  There  is 


134  THE  CIVIL  WAIL— SECOND  BOOK. 


no  “word  of  reproach.  Curio  makes  another  speech  to 
his  soldiers.  “Hasten  to  your  prey,”  he  says,  “hasten 
to  your  glory !  ”  They  do  hasten, — after  such  a  fashion 
that  when  the  foremost  of  them  reach  Sabura’s  troops, 
the  hindermost  of  them  are  scattered  far  back  on  the 
road.  They  are  cut  to  pieces  by  Juba.  Curio  is  in¬ 
vited  by  one  of  his  officers  to  escape  back  to  his  tent. 
But  Caesar  tells  us  that  Curio  in  that  last  moment 
replied  that  having  lost  the  army  with  which  Caesar 
had  trusted  him,  he  would  never  again  look  Caesar  in 
the  face.  That  he  did  say  some  such  words  as  these, 
and  that  they  were  repeated  by  that  officer  to  Caesar, 
is  probable  enough.  “  So  fighting  he  is  slain;” — 
and  there  is  an  end  of  the  man  whom  Caesar  loved. 

What  then  happened  was  very  sad  for  a  Roman  army. 
Many  hurry  down  to  the  ships  at  the  sea;  but  there  is 
so  much  terror,  so  much  confusion,  and  things  are  so 
badly  done,  that  but  very  few  get  over  to  Sicily.  The 
remainder  endeavor  to  give  themselves  up  to  Yarns; 
after  doing  which,  could  they  have  done  it,  their  posi¬ 
tion  would  not  have  been  very  bad.  A  Roman  surren¬ 
dering  to  a  Roman  would,  at  the  worst,  but  find  that 
he  was  compelled  to  change  his  party.  But  Juba  comes 
up  and  claims  them  as  his  prey,  and  Yarus  does  not 
dare  to  oppose  the  barbarian  king,  Juba  kills  the  most 
of  them,  but  sends  a  few,  whom  he  thinks  may  serve 
his  purpose  and  add  to  his  glory,  back  to  his  own  king¬ 
dom.  In  doing  which  Juba  behaved  no  worse  than 
Csesar  habitually  behaved  in  Gaul;  but  Caesar  always 
writes  as  though  not  only  a  Roman  must  regard  a  Ro¬ 
man  as  more  than  a  man,  but  as  though  also  all  others 
must  so  regard  Romans.  And  by  making  such  assertions 
in  their  own  behalf,  Romans  were  so  regarded.  We 
are  then  told  that  the  barbarian  king  of  Numidia  rode 


KING  JUBA. 


135 


into  lltica  triumphant,  with  Roman  senators  in  his 
train ;  and  the  names  of  two  special  Roman  Senators 
Caesar  sends  down  to  prosterity  as  having  been  among 
that  base  numbei.  As  far  as  we  can  spare  them,  they 
shall  be  spared. 

Of  Juba  the  king,  and  of  his  fate,  we  shall  hear 
again. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — CAESAR  FOLLOWS  POM* 
PEY  INTO  ILLYRIA. — THE  LINES  OF  PETRA  AND  THE 
BATTLE*OF  PHARSALIA. — B.C.  48. 

Caesar  begins  the  last  book  of  bis  last  Commentary 
by  telling  us  that  this  was  the  year  in  which  he  Caesar, 
was  by  the  law  permitted  to  name  a  consul.  He  names 
Publius  Servilius  to  act  in  conjunction  with  himself. 
The  meaning  of  this  is,  that,  as  Caesar  had  been  created 
Dictator,  Pompey  having  taken  with  him  into  Illyria 
the  consuls  of  the  previous  year,  Caesar  was  now  the 
only  magistrate  under  whose  authority  a  consul  could 
be  elected.  No  doubt  he  did  choose  tli*e  man,  but  the 
election  was  supposed  to  have  been  made  in  accordance 
with  the  form  of  the  Republic.  He  remained  at  Rome 
as  Dictator  for  eleven-days,  during  which  he  made  vari¬ 
ous  laws,  of  which  the  chief  object  was  to  lessen  the 
insecurity  caused  by  the  disruption  of  the  ordinary 
course  of  things;  and  then  he  went  down  to  Brindisi  on 
the  track  of  Pompey.  He  had  twelve  legions  with  him, 
but  he  was  badly  off  for  ships  in  which  to  transport 
them;  and  he  owns  that  the  health  of  the  men  is  bad, 
an  autumn  in  the  south  of  Italy  having  been  very  severe 
on  men  accustomed  to  the  healthy  climate  of  Gaul  and 
the  north  of  Spain.  Pompey,  he  tells  us,  had  had  a 


POMPETS  ARMY. 


137 


whole  year  to  prepare  his  army, — a  whole  year,  without 
warfare,  and  had  collected  men  and  ships  and  money, 
and  all  that  support  which  assent  gives,  from  Asia  and 
the  Cyclades,  from  Corcyra,  Athens,  Bithynia,  Cilicia, 
Phoenicia,  Egypt,  and  the  free  states  of  Achaia.  He 
had  with  him  nine  Roman  legions,  and  is  expecting  two 
more  with  his  father-in-law  Scipio  out  of  Syria.  He  has 
three  thousand  archers  from  Crete,  from  Sparta,  and 
from  Pontus;  he  has  twelve  hundred  slingers,  and  he 
has  seven  thousand  cavalry  from  Galatia,  Cappadocia, 
and  Thrace.  A  valorous  prince  from  Macedonia  had 
brought  him  two  hundred  men,  all  mounted.  Five  hun¬ 
dred  of  Galatian  and  German  cavalry,  who  had  been  left 
to  overawe  Ptolemy  in  Egypt,  are  brought  to  Pompey 
by  the  filial  care  of  young  Cnasus.  He  too  had  armed 
eight  hundred  of  their  own  family  retainers,  and  had 
brought  them  armed.  Antiochus  of  Commagena  sends 
him  two  hundred  mounted  archers, — mercenaries,  how¬ 
ever,  not  sent  without  promise  of  high  payment.  Dar- 
dani, — men  from  the  land  of  old  Troy,  Bessi,  from  the 
banks  of  the  Hebrus,  Thessalians  and  Macedonians, 
have  all  been  crowded  together  under  Pompey’s  stand¬ 
ard.  We  feel  that  Caesar’s  mouth  waters  as  he  re¬ 
counts  them.  But  we  feel  also  that  he  is  preparing  for 
the  triumphant  record  in  which  he  is  about  to  tell  us 
that  all  these  swarms  did  he  scatter  to  the  winds 
of  heaven  with  the  handful  of  Roman  legionaries 
which  he  at  last  succeeded  in  landing  on  the  shores 
of  Illyria. 

Pompey  has  also  collected  from  all  parts  “  frumenti 
vim  maximam” — ‘‘a  great  power  of  corn  indeed,”  as 
an  Irishman  would  say,  translating  the  words  literally. 
And  he  has  covered  the  seas  with  his  ships,  so  as  to 
hinder  Caesar  from  coming  out  of  Italy.  He  has  eight 


138  THE  CIVIL  WAR— THIRD  BOOK 


vice-admirals  to  command  his  various  fleets, — all  of 
whom  Caesar  names ;  and  over  them  all,  as  admiral-in- 
chief,  is  Bibulus,  who  was  joint-consul  with  Caesar  be¬ 
fore  Caesar  went  to  Caul,  and  who  was  so  harassed 
during  his  consulship  by  the  Caesareans  that  he  shut 
himself  up  in  his  house,  and  allowed  Caesar  to  rule  as 
sole  consul.  Now  he  is  about  to  take  his  revenge; 
but  the  vengeance  of  such  a  one  as  Bibulus  cannot 
reach  Caesar. 

Caesar  having  led  his  legions  to  Brindisi,  makes  them 
a  speech  which  almost  beats  in  impudence  anything 
that  he  ever  said  or  did.  He  tells  them  that  as  they 
have  now  nearly  finished  all  his  work  for  him, — they 
have  only  got  to  lay  low  the  Republic  with  Pompey 
the  Great,  and  all  the  forces  of  the  Republic — to  which, 
however,  have  to  be  added  King  Ptolemy  in  Egypt, 
King  Pharnaces  in  Asia,  and  King  Juba  in  Numidia; — 
they  had  better  leave  behind  them  at  Brindisi  all  their 
little  property,  the  spoils  of  former  wars,  so  that  they 
may  pack  the  tighter  in  the  boats  in  which  he  means 
to  send  them  across  to  Illyria, — if  only  they  can  escape 
the  mercies  of  ex-Consul  Admiral  Bibulus.  There  is 
no  suggestion  that  at  any  future  time  they  will  recover 
their  property.  For  their  future  hopes  they  are  to  trust 
entirely  to  Csesar’s  generosity.  With  one  shout  they 
declare  their  readiness  to  obey  him.  He  takes  over 
seven  legions,  escaping  the  dangers  of  those  “  rocks  of 
evil  fame,”  the  Acroceraunia  of  which  Horace  tells  us, 
— and  escaping  Bibulus  also,  who  seems  to  have  shut 
himself  up  in  his  ship  as  he  did  before  in  his  house  dur¬ 
ing  the  consulship.  Csesar  seems  to  have  made  the  pas¬ 
sage  with  the  conviction  that  had  he  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  Bibulus  everything  would  have  been  lost.  And 
with  ordinary  precaution  and  diligence  on  the  part  of 


CJESAR  CROSSES  INTO  EPIRUS. 


139 


Bibulus  such  would  have  been  the  result.  Yet  he  makes 
the  attempt, — trusting  to  the  Fortune  of  Caesar, — and 
he  succeeds.  He  lands  at  a  place  which  he  calls  Pal- 
aeste  on  the  coast  of  Epirus,  considerably  to  the  south 
of  Dyrrachium,  in  Illyria.  At  Dyrrachium  Pompey  had 
landed  the  year  before,  and  there  is  now  stored  that 
wealth  of  provision  of  which  Caesar  has  spoken.  But 
Bibulus  at  last  determines  to  be  active,  and  he  does 
manage  to  fall  upon  the  empty  vessels  which  Caesar 
sends  back  to  fetch  the  remainder  of  his  army.  “Hav¬ 
ing  come  upon  thirty  of  them,  he  falls  upon  them  with 
all  the  wrath  occasioned  by  his  own  want  of  circum¬ 
spection  and  grief,  and  burns  them.  And  in  the  same 
fire  he  kills  the  sailors  and  the  masters  of  the  vessels, 
— hoping  to  deter  others,”  Caesar  tells  us,  “  by  the  se¬ 
verity  of  the  punishment.”  After  that  we  are  not  sorry 
to  hear  that  he  potters  about  on  the  seas  very  busy, 
but  still  incapable,  and  that  he  dies,  as  it  seems,  of  a 
broken  heart.  He  does  indeed  catch  one  ship  after¬ 
wards, — not  laden  with  soldiers,  but  coming  on  a  pri¬ 
vate  venture,  with  children,  servants,  and  suchlike,  de¬ 
pendants  and  followers  of  Caesar’s  camp.  All  these, 
including  the  children,  Bibulus  slaughters,  down  to 
the  smallest  child.  We  have,  however,  to  remember 
that  the  story  is  told  by  Caesar,  and  that  Caesar  did  not 
love  Bibulus. 

Marc  Antony  has  been  left  at  Brindisi  in  command 
of  the  legions  which  Caesar  could  not  bring  across  at  his 
first  trip  for  want  of  sufficient  ship-room,  and  is  pressed 
very  much  by  Caesar  to  make  the  passage.  There  are 
attempts  at  treaties  made,  but  as  we  read  the  account 
we  feel  that  Caesar  is  only  obtaining  the  delay  which 
is  necessary  to  him  till  he  shall  have  been  joined  by 
Antony.  We  are  told  how  by  this  time  the  camps  of 


140  the  civil  war.— third  book . 


Caesar  and  Pompey  have  been  brought  so  near  to¬ 
gether  that  they  are  separated  only  by  the  river  Apsus, — 
for  Caesar  had  moved  northwards  towards  Pompey’s 
stronghold.  And  the  soldiers  talked  together  across  the 
stream;  “nor,  the  while,  was  any  weapon  thrown,— by 
compact  betwreen  those  who  talked.”  Then  Caesar 
sends  Yatinius,  as  his  ambassador,  down  to  the  river  to 
talk  of  peace;  and  Yatinius  demands  with  a  loud  voice 
“whether it  should  not  be  allowed  to  citizens  to  send 
legates  to  citizens,  to  treat  of  peace; — a  thing  that  has 
been  allowed  even  to  deserters  from  the  wilds  of  the  Py¬ 
renees  and  to  robbers, — especially  with  so  excellent  an 
object  as  that  of  hindering  citizens  from  fighting  with 
citizens.”  This  seems  so  reasonable,  that  a  day  is 
named,  and  Labienus, — who  has  deserted  from  Caesar 
and  become  Pompeian, — comes  to  treat  on  one  side  of 
the  river,  and  Yatinius  on  the  other.  But, — so  Caesar 
tells  the  story  himself, — the  Caesarean  soldiers  throw 
their  weapons  at  their  old  general.  They  probably 
cannot  endure  the  voice  or  sight  of  one  wThom  they  re¬ 
gard  as  a  renegade.  Labienus  escapes  under  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  those  who  are  with  him, — but  he  is  full  of 
wrath  against  Caesar.  “After  this,”  says  he,  “let  us 
cease  to  speak  of  treaties,  for  there  can  be  no  peace  for 
us  till  Caesar's  head  has  been  brought  to  us.”  But  the 
colloquies  over  the  little  stream  -no  doubt  answered 
Caesar’s  purpose. 

Caesar  is  very  anxious  to  get  his  legions  over  from 
Italy,  and  even  scolds  Antony  for  not  bringing  them. 
There  is  a  story, — which  he  does  not  tell  himself, — that 
he  put  himself  into  a  small  boat,  intending  to  cross 
over  to  Brindisi  in  a  storm,  to  hurry  matters,  and  that 
he  encouraged  the  awe-struck  master  of  the  boat  by  re¬ 
minding  him  that  he  would  carry  “  Caesar  and  his 


CAESAR'S  ARMY  IN  ILLYRIA. 


141 


fortunes.”  The  story  goes  on  to  say  that  t^e sailors  at¬ 
tempted  the  trip,  but  were  driven  back  by  the  tempest. 

At  last  there  springs  up  a  smth-wcst  wind,  and  An¬ 
tony  ventures  with  his  flotilla, — although  the  war-ships 
of  Pompey  still  hold  th  3  sea,  and  guard  the  Illyrian 
coast.  But  Caesar’s  general  is  successful,  and  the 
second  half  of  the  Caesarean  army  is  carried  northward 
by  favoring  breezes  towards  the  shore  in  the  very  sight 
of  Pompey  and  his  soldiers  at  Dyrrachium.  Two 
ships,  however,  lag  behind  and  fall  into  the  hands  of 
one  Otacilius,  an  officer  belonging  to  Pompey.  The 
two  ships,  one  full  of  recruits  and  the  other  of  veterans, 
agree  to  surrender,  Otacilius  having  sworn  that  he  will 
not  hurt  the  men.  “  Here  you  may  see,”  says  Caesar, 
“  how  much  safety  to  men  there  is  in  presence  of  mind.” 
The  recruits  do  as  they  have  undertaken,  and  give 
themselves  up ; — whereupon  Otacilius,  altogether  disre¬ 
garding  his  oath,  like  a  true  Roman,  kills  every  man  of 
them.  But  the  veterans,  disregarding  their  word  also, 
and  knowing  no  doubt  to  a  fraction  the  worth  of  the 
word  of  Otacilius,  run  their  ship  ashore  in  the  night, 
and,  with  much  fighting  get  safe  to  Antony.  Caesar 
implies  that  the  recruits  even  would  have  known  better 
had  they  not  been  sea-sick;  but  that  even  bilge- water 
and  bad  weather  combined  had  failed  to  touch  the 
ancient  courage  of  the  veteran  legionaries.  They  were 
still  good  men — “item  conflictati  et  tempestatis  et 
sentinae  vitiis.” 

We  are  then  told  how  Metellus  Scipio,  coming  out  of 
Syria  with  his  legions  into  Macedonia,  almost  succeeds 
in  robbing  the  temple  of  Diana  of  Ephesus  on  his  way. 
He  gets  together  a  body  of  senators,  who  are  to  give 
evidence  that  he  counts  the  money  fairly  as  he  takes  it 
put  of  the  temple.  But  letters  come  from  Pompey 


142  THE  CIVIL  WAIL— third  book. 


just  as  lie  is  in  the  act,  and  he  does  not  dare  to  de¬ 
lay  his  journey  even  do  complete  so  pleasant  a  trans¬ 
action.  He  comes  to  meet  Pompey  and  to  share  his 
command  at  the  great  battle  that  must  soon  be  fought. 
We  hear,  too,  how  Caesar  sends  his  lieutenants  into 
Thessaly  and  iEtolia  and  Macedonia,  to  try  what 
friends  he  has  there,  to  take  cities,  and  to  get  food, 
He  is  now  in  a  land  which  has  seemed  specially  to  be¬ 
long  to  Pompey;  but  even  here  they  have  heard  of 
Caesar,  and  the  Greeks  are  simply  anxious  to  be  friends 
with  the  strongest  Roman  of  the  day.  They  have  to 
judge  which  will  win,  and  to  adhere  to  him.  For  the 
poor  Greeks  there  is  much  difficulty  in  forming  a  judg¬ 
ment.  Presently  we  shall  see  the  way  in  which  Caesar 
gives  a  lesson  on  that  subject  to  the  citizens  of  Gomphi. 
In  the  mean  time  he  joins  his  own  forces  to  those  lately 
brought  by  Antony  out  of  Italy,  and  resolves  that  he 
will  force  Pompey  to  a  tight. 

We  may  divide  the  remainder  of  this  last  book  of 
the  second  Commentary  into  two  episodes, — the  first 
being  the  story  of  what  occurred  within  the  lines  at 
Petra,  and  the  second  the  account  of  the  crowning 
battle  of  Pharsalia.  In  the  first  Pompey  was  the 
victor, — but  the  victory,  great  as  it  was,  has  won  from 
the  world  very  little  notice.  In  the  second,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  Caesar  wTas  triumphant  and  henceforward 
dominant.  And  yet  the  affair  at  Petra  should  have 
made  a  Pharsalia  unnecessary,  and  indeed  impossible. 
Two  reasons  have  conspired  to  make  Pompey's  com¬ 
plete  success  at  Petra  unimportant  in  the  world’s  esteem. 
This  Commentary  was  written  not  by  Pompey  but  by 
Caesar;  and  then,  unfortunately  for  Pompey,  Pharsalia 
was  allowed  to  follow  Petra. 


Cj&JSAU  IN  ILLYRIA. 


\ 

143 


It  is  not  very  easy  to  unravel  Caesar’s  story  of  the 
doings  of  the  two  armies  at  Petra.  Nor,  were  this 
ever  so  easy,  wTould  our  limits  or  the  purport  of  this 
little  volume  allow  us  to  attempt  to  give  that  narrative 
in  full  to  our  readers.  Caesar  had  managed  to  join  the 
legions  which  he  had  himself  brought  from  Italy  with 
those  which  had  crossed  afterwards  with  Antony,  and 
was  now  anxious  for  a  battle.  His  men,  though  fewer 
in  number  than  they  who  followed  Pompey,  were  fit  for 
fighting,  and  knew  all  the  work  of  soldiering.  Pom- 
pey’s  men  were  for  the  most  part  beginners; — but 
they  were  learning,  and  every  week  added  to  their  ex¬ 
perience  wras  a  week  in  Pompey’s  favor.  With  hope  of 
forcing  a  battle,  Caesar  managed  to  get  his  army  between 
Dyrrachium,  in  which  were  kept  all  Pompey’s  stores 
and  wealth  of  war,  and  the  army  of  his  opponent,  so 
that  Pompey,  as  regarded  any  approach  by  land,  was  shut 
off  from  Dyrrachium.  But  the  sea  was  open  to  him. 
His  fleet  was  everywhere  on  the  coast,  while  Caesar 
had  not  a  ship  that  could  dare  to  show  its  bow  upon 
the  waters. 

There  was  a  steep  rocky  promontory  some  few  miles 
north  of  Dyrrachium,  from  whence  there  was  easy  access 
to  the  sea,  called  Petra,  or  the  rock.  At  this  point 
Pompey  could  touch  the  sea,  but  between  Petra  and 
Dyrrachium  Caesar  held  the  country.  Here,  on  this 
rock,  taking  in  for  the  use  of  his  army  a  certain  some¬ 
what  wide  amount  of  pasturage  at  the  foot  of  the  rock, 
Pompey  placed  his  army,  and  made  intrenchments  all 
round  from  sea  to  sea,  fortifying  himself,  as  all  Roman 
generals  knew  how  to  do,  with  a  bank  and  ditch  and 
twenty-four  turrets  and  earthworks  that  would  make 
the  place  absolutely  impregnable.  The  length  of  his 
lines  was  fifteen  Roman  miles..—  more  than  thirteen 


144  tee  civil  war— third  book. 


English  miles, — so  that  within  his  works  he  might 
have  as  much  space  as  possible  to  give  him  grass  for 
his  horses.  So  placed,  he  had  all  the  world  at  his 
back  to  feed  him.  Not  only  could  he  get  at  that 
wealth  of  stores  w7hich  he  had  amassed  at  Dyrrachium, 
and  which  were  safe  from  Caesar,  but  the  coasts  of 
Greece,  and  Asia,  and  Egypt  were  open  to  his  ships. 
Two  things  only  were  wranting  to  him, — sufficient  grass 
for  his  horses,  and  water.  But  all  things  were  want¬ 
ing  to  Caesar, — except  grass  and  water.  The  Illyrian 
country  at  his  back  was  one  so  unproductive,  being 
rough  and  mountainous,  that  the  inhabitants  them¬ 
selves  were  in  ordinary  times  fed  upon  imported  corn. 
And  Pompey,  foreseeing  something  of  what  might  hap¬ 
pen,  had  taken  care  to  empty  the  store-houses  and  to 
leave  the  towns  behind  him  destitute  and  impoverished. 

Nevertheless  Caesar,  having  got  the  body  of  his 
enemy,  as  it  were,  imprisoned  at  Petra,  was  determined 
to  keep  his  prisoner  fast.  So  round  and  in  front  of 
Pompey’s  lines  he  also  made  other  lines,  from  sea  to 
sea.  He  began  by  erecting  turrents  and  placing  small 
detachments  on  the  little  hills  outside  Pompey’s  lines, 
so  as  to  prevent  his  enemy  from  getting  the  grass. 
Then  he  joined  these  towers  by  lines,  and  in  this  way 
surrounded  the  other  lines, — thinking  that  so  Pom¬ 
pey  would  not  be  able  to  send  out  his  horsemen  for 
forage;  and  again,  that  the  horses  inside  at  Petra 
might  gradually  be  starved ;  and  again  ;  ‘  that  the  repu¬ 
tation,” — “auctoritatem,” — “  which  in  the  estimation  of 
foreign  nations  belonged  chiefly  to  Pompey  in  this  war, 
would  be  lessened  when  the  story  should  have  been 
told  over  the  world  that  Pompey  had  been  besieged  by 
Caesar,  and  did  not  dare  to  fight.  ” 


TEE  LINES  OF  PETRA. 


145 


We  are,  perhaps,  too  much  disposed  to  think, — read¬ 
ing  our  history  somewhat  cursorily, — that  Caesar  at  this 
time  was  everybody,  and  that  Pompey  was  hardly 
worthy  to  he  his  foe.  Such  passages  in  the  Commen¬ 
tary  as  that  above  translated, — they  are  not  many,  but 
a  few  suffice, — show  that  this  idea  is  erroneous.  Up 
to  this  period  in  their  joint  courses  Pompey  had  been 
the  greater  man;  Caesar  had  done  very  much,  but 
Pompey  had  done  more — and  now  he  had  on  his  side 
almost  all  that  was  wealthy  and  respectable  in  Rome. 
He  led  the  Conservative  party,  and  was  still  confident 
that  he  had  only  to  bide  his  time,  and  that  Caesar 
must  fall  before  him.  Caesar  and  the  Caesareans  were 
to  him  as  the  spirits  of  the  Revolution  were  in  France 
to  Louis  XVI.,  to  Charles  X.,  and  to  Louis-Philippe, 
before  they  had  made  their  powers  credible  and  for¬ 
midable;  as  the  Reform  Bill  and  Catholic  Emancipa¬ 
tion  were  to  such  men  as  George  IV.  and  Lord  Eldon, 
while  yet  they  could  be  opposed  and  postponed.  It 
was  impossible  to  Pompey  that  the  sweepings  of  Rome, 
even  with  Caesar  and  Caesar’s  army  to  help  them, 
should  at  least  prevail  over  himself  and  over  the 
Roman  Senate.  “He  was  said  at  that  time,”  we  are 
again  translating  Caesar’s  words,  “  to  have  declared  with 
boasts  among  his  own  people,  that  he  would  not  him¬ 
self  deny  that  as  a  general  he  should  be  considered  to 
be  worthless  if  Caesar’s  legions  should  now  extricate 
themselves  from  the  position  in  which  they  had  rashly 
entangled  themselves  without  very  great  loss  ” — 
“maximo  detrimento” — loss  that  should  amount 
wellnigh  to  destruction.  And  he  was  all  but  right  in 
what  he  said. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  fighting  for  the  plots  of 
grass  and  different  bits  of  vantage-ground,— fighting 


146  the  CIVIL  WAR— mini)  BOOK. 


which  must  have  taken  place  almost  entirely  between 
the  two  lines.  But  Caesar  suffered  under  this  disad¬ 
vantage,  that  his  works,  being  much  the  longest, 
required  tlie  greatest  number  of  men  to  erect  them  and 
prolong  them  and  keep  them  in  order;  whereas  Pom- 
pey,  who  in  this  respect  had  the  least  to  do,  having  the 
inner  line,  was  provided  with  much  the  greater  num¬ 
ber  of  men  to  do  it.  Caesar’s  men,  being  veterans,  had 
always  the  advantage  in  the  actual  fighting;  but  in  the 
mean  time  Pompey’s  untried  soldiers  were  obtaining 
that  experience  which  was  so  much  needed  by  them. 
Nevertheless  Pompey  suffered  very  much.  They 
could  not  get  water  on  the  rock,  and  when  he  attempted 
to  sink  wells,  Caesar  so  perverted  the  water-courses 
that  the  wells  gave  no  water.  Caesar  tells  us  that  he 
even  dammed  up  the  streams,  making  little  lakes  to 
hold  it,  so  that  it  should  not  trickle  down  in  its  under¬ 
ground  courses  to  the  comfort  of  his  enemies;  but  we 
should  have  thought  that  any  reservoirs  so  made  must 
soon  have  overflown  themselves,  and  have  been  useless 
for  the  intended  purpose.  In  the  mean  time  Caesar’s 
men  had  no  bread  but  what  was  made  of  a  certain  wild 
cabbage, — “chara,” — which  grew  there,  which  they 
kneaded  up  with  milk,  and  lived  upon  it  cheerfully, 
though  it  was  not  very  palatable.  To  show  the  Pom¬ 
peians  the  sort  of  fare  with  which  real  veterans  could  be 
content  to  break  their  fasts,  they  threw  loaves  of  this 
composition  across  the  lines,  for  they  were  close  together 
and  could  talk  to  each  other,  and  the  Pompeians  did 
not  hesitate  to  twit  their  enemies  with  their  want  of 
provisions.  But  the  Caesareans  had  plenty  of  water, 
— and  plenty  of  meat;  and  they  assure  Caesar  that  they 
would  rather  eat  the  bark  off  the  trees  than  allow  the 
Pompeians  to  escape  them. 


THE  LINES  OF  PETRA.  147 


But  there  was  always  this  for  Csesar  to  fear, — that 
Pornpey  should  land  a  detachment  behind  his  lines 
and  attack  him  at  the  hack.  To  hinder  this  Caesar 
made  another  intrenchment,  with  ditch  and  hank,  run¬ 
ning  at  right  angles  from  the  shore,  and  was  intending 
to  join  this  to  his  main  work  hy  a  transverse  line  of 
fortifications  running  along  that  short  portion  of  the 
coast  which  lay  between  his  first  lines  and  the  second, 
when  there  came  upon  him  the  disaster  which  nearly 
destroyed  him.  While  he  was  digging  his  trenches 
and  building  his  turrets  the  fighting  was  so  frequent 
that,  as  Caesar  tells  us,  on  one  day  there  were  six  bat¬ 
tles.  Pornpey  lost  two  thousand  legionaries,  while 
Caesar  lost  no  more  than  twenty;  but  every  Caesarean 
engaged  in  a  certain  turret  was  wounded;  and  four 
officers  lost  their  eyes.  Caesar  estimates  that  thirty 
thousand  arrows  were  thrown  upon  the  men  defending 
this  tower,  and  tells  us  of  one  Scaeva,  an  officer,  who 
had  two  hundred  and  thirty  holes  made  by  these 
arrows  in  his  own  shield.*  We  can  only  sur- 

*  Dean  Merivale  in  his  account  of  this  affair  reduces  the  num¬ 
ber  of  holes  in  Scaeva's  shield  to  one  hundred  and  twenty,— on 
the  joint  authority,  no  doubt,  of  Florus  and  Valerius  Maximus; 
but  Florus  lived  200  and  Val.  Max.  300  years  after  Caesar. 
Suetonius  allows  the  full  number  of  holes,  but  implies  that  120 
were  received  while  the  warrior  was  fighting  in  one  place,  and 
110  while  fighting  in  another.  Lucan  sings  the  story  of  Scaeva 

at  great  length,  but  does  not  give  the  number  of  wounds 
in  the  shield.  He  seems  to  say  that  Scaeva  was  killed  on  this 
occasion,  but  is  not  quite  clear  on  the  point.  That  Scaeva  had 
one  eye  knocked  out  is  certain.  Lucan  does  indeed  tell  us,  m 
the  very  last  lines  of  his  poem,  that  in  Egypt  Caesar  once 
again  saw  his  beloved  centurion but  at  the  moment  described 
even  Caesar  was  dismayed,  and  the  commentators  doubt  whether 
it  was  not  Scaeva’s  ghost  that  Caesar  then  saw.  Valerius  Maxi¬ 
mus  is  sure  that  Scaeva  was  killed  when  he  got  the  wounds;  gut, 
if  so,  how  could  he  have  been  rewarded  and  promoted?  I  he 
matter  has  been  very  much  disputed;  but  here  it  has  been 
thought  best  to  adhere  to  Caesar. 


148  the  civil  war.— third  boor. 


mise  that  it  must  have  been  a  very  big  shield,  and  that 
there  must  have  been  much  trouble  in  counting  the 
holes.  Caesar,  however,  was  so  much  pleased  that  he 
gave  Scaeva  a  large  sum  of  money,— something  over 
£500,  and,  allowing  him  to  skip  over  six  intermediate 
ranks,  made  him  at  once  first  centurion — or  Primipilus 
of  the  legion.  We  remember  no  other  record  of  such 
quick  promotion — in  prose.  There  is,  indeed,  the  well- 
known  case  of  a  common  sailor  who  did  a  gallant  ac¬ 
tion  and  was  made  first-lieutenant  on  the  spot;  but 
that  is  told  in  verse,  and  the  common  sailor  was  a  lady. 

Two  perfidious  Gauls  to  whom  Caesar  had  been  very 
kind,  but  whom  he  had  been  obliged  to  check  on  ac¬ 
count  of  certain  gross  peculations  of  which  they  had 
been  guilty,  though,  as  he  tells  us,  he  had  not  time  to 
punish  them,  went  over  to  Pompey,  and  told  Pompey 
all  the  secrets  of  Caesar’s  ditches,  and  forts,  and  mounds, 
— finished  and  unfinished.  Before  that,  Caesar  assures 
us,  not  a  single  man  of  his  had  gone  over  to  the  ene¬ 
my,  though  many  of  the  enemy  had  come  to  him.  But 
those  perfidious  Gauls  did  a  world  of  mischief.  Pompey, 
hearing  how  far  Caesar  was  from  having  his  works  along 
the  sea-shore  finished,  got  together  a  huge  fleet  of  boats, 
and  succeeded  at  night  in  throwing  a  large  body  of  his 
men  ashore  between  Caesar’s  two  lines,  thus  dividing 
Caesar’s  forces,  and  coming  upon  them  in  their  weakest 
point.  Caesar  admits  that  there  was  a  panic  in  his 
lines,  and  that  the  slaughter  of  his  men  was  very  great. 
It  seems  that  the  very  size  of  his  own  works  produced 
the  ruin  which  befel  them,  for  the  different  parts  of 
them  were  divided  one  from  another,  s  j  that  the  men 
in  one  position  could  not  succor  those  in  another.  The 
affair  ended  in  the  total  rout  of  the  Caesarean  army, 
paesar  actually  fled,  and  had  Pompey  followed  him  we 


TEE  LINES  OF  PETRA. 


149 


must  suppose  that  then  there  would  have  been  an 
end  of  Caesar.  He  acknowledges  that  in  the  two 
battles  fought  on  that  day  he  lost  960  legionaries,  32 
officers,  and  32  standards. 

And  then  Caesar  tells  us  a  story  of  Labienus,  who  had 
been  his  most  trusted  lieutenant  in  the  Gallic  wars,  but 
who  had  now  gone  over  to  Pompey,  not  choosing  to 
fight  against  the  Republic.  Labienus  demanded  of 
Pompey  the  Caesarean  captives,  and  caused  them  all  to 
be  slaughtered,  asking  them  with  scorn  whether  veter¬ 
ans  such  as  they  were  accustomed  to  run  away.  Caesar 
is  very  angry  with  Labienus;  but  Labienus  might  have 
defended  himself  by  saying  that  the  slaughter  of  pris¬ 
oners  of  war  was  a  custom  he  had  learned  in  Gaul. 
As  for  those  words  of  scorn,  Caesar  could  hardly  have 
heard  them  with  his  own  ears,  and  we  can  understand 
that  he  should  take  delight  in  saying  a  hard  thing  of 
Labienus. 

Pompey  was  at  once  proclaimed  Imperator.  And 
Pompey  used  the  name,  though  the  victory  had, 
alas!  been  gained  over  his  fellow-countrymen.  “  So 
great  was  the  effect  of  all  this  on  the  spirits  and  confi¬ 
dence  of  the  Pompeians,  that  they  thought  no  more  of 
the  carrying  on  of  the  war,  but  only  of  the  victory 
they  had  gained.”  And  then  Caesar  throws  scorn 
upon  the  Pompeians,  making  his  own  apology  in  the 
same  words.  “  They  did  not  care  to  remember  that 
the  small  number  of  our  soldiers  was  the  cause  of  their 
triumph,  or  that  the  unevenness  of  the  ground  and  nar¬ 
rowness  of  the  defiles  had  aught  to  do  with  it;  or 
the  occupation  of  our  lines,  and  the  panic  of  our  men 
between  their  double  fortifications;  or  our  army  cut 
into  twb  parts,  so  that  one  part  could  not  help  the 
other.  Nor  did  they  add  to  this  the  fact  that  our  men, 


150 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


pressed  as  they  were,  could  not  engage  themselves  in 
a  fair  conflict,  and  that  they  indeed  suffered  more  from 
their  own  numbers,  and  from  the  narrowness  of  the 
ravines,  than  from  tbe  enemy.  Nor  were  the  ordinary 
chances  of  war  brought  to  mind, — how  small  matters, 
such  as  some  unfounded  suspicion,  a  sudden  panic,  a 
remembered  superstition,  may  create  great  misfortune; 
nor  how  often  the  fault  of  a  general,  or  the  mistake  of  j 
an  officer,  may  bring  injury  upon  an  army.  But  they 
spread  abroad  the  report  of  the  victory  of  that  day 
throughout  all  the  world,  sending  forth  letters  and 
tales  as  though  they  had  conquered  solely  by  their  own 
valor,  nor  was  it  possible  that  there  should  after  this 
be  a  reverse  of  their  circumstances.”  Such  was  the 
affair  of  Petra,  by  which  the  relative  position  in  the 
world-history  of  Caesar  and  Pompey  was  very  nearly 
made  the  reverse  of  what  it  is. 

Caesar  now  acknowledges  that  he  is  driven  to  change 
the  whole  plan  of  his  campaign.  He  addresses  a 
speech  to  his  men,  and  explaius  to  them  that  this 
defeat,  like  that  at  Gergovia,  may  lead  to  their  future 
success.  The  victory  at  Alesia  had  sprung  from  the 
defeat  of  Gergovia,  because  the  Gauls  had  been  in¬ 
duced  to  fight;  and  from  the  reverses  endured  within 
the  lines  of  Petra  might  come  the  same  fortune; — for 
surely  now  the  army  of  Pompey  would  not  fear  a 
battle.  Some  few  officers  he  punishes  and  degrades. 
His  own  words  respecting  his  army  after  their  defeat 
are  very  touching.  “  So  great  a  grief  had  come  from 
this  disaster  upon  the  whole  army,  and  so  strong  a 
desire  of  repairing  its  disgrace,  that  no  one  now  desired 
the  place  of  tribune  or  centurion  in  his  legion;  and 
all,  by  way  of  self-imposed  punishment,  subjected 
themselves  to  increased  toil;  and  every  man  burned 


PII AES  ALIA. 


151 


\ 

with  a  desire  to  fight.  Some  from  the  higher  ranks 
were  so  stirred  by  Caesar’s  speech,  that  they  thought 
that  they  should  stand  their  ground  where  they  were 
and  fight  where  they  stood.”  But  Caesar  was  too 
good  a  general  for  that.  He  moves  on  towards  the 
south-east,  and  in  retreating  gets  the  better  of  Pompey, 
who  follows  him  with  only  half  a  heart.  After  a 
short  while  Pompey  gives  up  the  pursuit.  His  father- 
in-law,  Scipio,  has  brought  a  great  army  from  the 
east,  and  is  in  Thessaly.  As  we  read  this  we  cannot 
fail  to  remember  how  short  a  time  since  it  was  that 
Caesar  himself  was  Pompey’s  father-in-law,  and  that 
Pompey  was  Caesar’s  friend  because,  with  too  uxorious 
a  love,  he  clung  to  Julia,  his  young  wife.  Pompey 
now  goes  eastward  to  unite  his  army  to  that  of  Scipio, 
and  Caesar,  making  his  way  also  into  Thessaly  by  a 
more  southern  route,  joins  certain  forces  under  his 
lieutenant  Calvinus,  who  had  been  watching  Scipio, 
and  who  barely  escaped  falling  into  Pompey’s  hands 
before  he  could  reach  Caesar.  But  wherever  Fortune 
or  Chance  could  interfere,  the  Gods  were  always  kind 
to  Caesar. 

Then  Caesar  tells  us  of  his  treatment  of  two  towns 
in  Thessaly,  Gomphi  and  Metropolis.  Unluckily  for 
the  poor  Gomphians,  Caesar  reaches  Gomphi  first. 
Now  the  fame  of  Pompey’s  victory  at  Petra  had  been 
spread  abroad;  and  the  Gomphians,  who,  to  give  them 
their  due, — would  have  been  just  as  willing  to  favor 
Caesar  as  Pompey,  and  who  only  wanted  to  be  on  the 
winning  side  that  they  might  hold  their  little  own  in 
safety,  believed  that  things  were  going  badly  with 
Caesar.  They  therefore  shut  their  gates  against  Caesar, 
and  sent  off  messengers  to  pompey.  They  can  hold 
their  town  against  Caesar  for  a  little  while,  but  Pompey 


152  THE  CIVIL  WAR— THIRD  BOOK. 


must  come  quickly  to  their  aid.  Pompey  comes  by 
no  means  quick  enough,  and  the  Gomphians’  capacity 
to  hold  their  own  is  very  short-lived.  At  about  three 
o’clock  in  the  afternoon  Caesar  begins  to  besiege  the 
town,  and  before  sunset  he  has  taken  it,  and  given  it 
to  be  sacked  by  his  soldiers.  The  men  of  Metropolis 
were  also  going  to  shut  their  gates,  but  luckily  they 
hear  just  in  time  what  had  happened  at  Gomphi, — and 
open  them  instead.  Whereupon  Caesar  showers  pro¬ 
tection  upon  Metropolis;  and  all  the  other  towns  of 
Thessaly,  hearing  what  had  been  done,  learn  what 
Caesar’s  favor  means. 

Pompey,  having  joined  his  army  to  that  of  Scipio, 
shares  all  his  honors  with  his  father-in-law.  When 
we  hear  this  we  know  that  Pompey’s  position  was  not 
comfortable,  and  that  he  was  under  constraint.  He 
was  a  man  who  would  share  his  honor  with  no  one 
unless  driven  to  do  so.  And  indeed  his  command 
at  present  was  not  a  pleasant  one.  It  was  much  for 
a  Roman  commander  to  have  ,with  him  the  Roman 
Senate, — but  the  senators  so  placed  would  be  apt  to  be 
less  obedient  than  trained  soldiers.  They  even  accuse 
him  of  keeping  them  in  Thessaly  because  he  likes  to 
lord  it  over  such  followers.  But  they  were,  neverthe¬ 
less,  all  certain  that  Caesar  was  about  to  be  destroyed; 
and,  even  in  Pompey’s  camp,  they  quarrel  over  the 
rewards  of  victory  which  they  think  that  they  will 
enjoy  at  Rome  when  their  oligarchy  shall  have  been 
re-established  by  Pompey’s  arms. 

Before  the  great  day  arrives  Labienus  again  ap¬ 
pears  on  the  scene;  and  Caesar  puts  into  his  mouth  a 
speech  which  he  of  course  intends  us  to  compare  with 
the  result  of  the  coming  battle.  “  Do  not  think,  O 
Pompey,  that  this  is  the  army  which  conquers  Gaul 


PflARSALIA. 


153 


and  Germany,” — where  Labienus  himself  was  second 
in  command  under  Caesar.  “I  was  present  at  all 
those  battles,  and  speak  of  a  thing  which  I  know.  A 
very  small  party  of  that  army  remains.  Many  have 
perished, — as  a  matter  of  course  in  so  many  battles. 
The  autumn  pestileuce  killed  many  in  Italy.  Many 
have  gone  home.  Many  have  been  left  on  the  other 
shore.  Have  you  not  heard  from  our  own  friends  who 
remained  behind  sick,  that  these  cohorts  of  Caesar’s 
were  made  up  at  Brindisi?” — made  up  but  the  other 
day,  Labienus  implies.  “  This  army,  indeed,  has  been 
renewed  from  levies  in  the  two  Gauls;  but  all  that  it 
had  of  strength  perished  in  those  two  battles  at  Dyr- 
rachium ;  ” — in  the  contests,  that  is,  within  the  lines  of 
Petra.  Upon  this  Labienus  swears  that  he  will  not 
sleep  under  canvas  again  until  he  sleeps  as  victor  over 
Caesar;  and  Pompey  swears  the  same,  and  everybody 
swears.  Then  they  all  go  away  full  of  the  coming 
victory.  We  daresay  there  was  a  great  deal  of  false 
confidence;  but  as  for  the  words  which  Caesar  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Labienus,  we  know  well  how  much 
cause  Caesar  had  to  dislike  Labienus,  and  we  doubt 
whether  they  were  ever  spoken. 

At  length  the  battle-field  is  chosen, — near  the  town 
of  Pharsalus,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Enipeus  in 
Thessaly.  The  battle  has  acquired  world-wide  fame  as 
that  of  Pharsalia,  which  we  have  been  taught  to  regard  as 
the  name  of  the  plain  on  which  it  was  fought.  Neither 
of  these  names  occur  in  the  Commentary,  nor  does 
that  of  the  river;  and  the  actual  spot  on  which  the 
great  contest  took  place  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  doubt 
even  now.  The  ground  is  Turkish  soil, — near  to  the 
mountains  which  separate  modern  Greece  from  Turkey 
and  is  not  well  adapted  for  the  researches  of  historical 


154  THE  CIVIL  WAR. -THIRD  BOOK. 


travelers.  Caesar  had  been  keeping  his  men  on  the  ' 
march  close  to  Pompey,  till  Pompey  found  that  he 
could  no  longer  abstain  from  fighting.  Then  came 
Labienus  with  his  vaunts,  and  his  oath, — and  at  length 
the  day  and  the  field  were  chosen.  Caesar  at  any  rate 
was  ready.  At  this  time  Caesar  was  fifty-two  years 
old,  and  Pompey  was  five  years  his  elder. 

Caesar  tells  us  that  Pompey  had  110  cohorts,  or  eleven 
legions.  Had  the  legions  been  full,  Pompey’s  army 
would  have  contained  66,000  legionaries;  but  Caesar 
states  their  number  at  45,000,  or  something  over  two- 
thirds  of  the  full  number.  He  does  not  forget  to  tell 
us  once  again  that  among  these  eleven  were  the  two 
legions  which  he  had  given  up  in  obedience  to  the  de¬ 
mand  of  the  Senate.  Pompey  himself,  with  these  two 
very  legions,  placed  himself  on  the  left  away  from  the 
river;  and  there  also  were  all  his  auxiliaries, — not 
counted  with  the  legionaries, — slingers,  archers,  and 
cavalry.  Scipio  commanded  in  the  centre  "with  the 
legions  he  had  brought  out  of  Syria.  So  Caesar  tells 
us.  We  learn  from  other  sources  that  Lentulus  com¬ 
manded  Pompey’s  right  wing,  lying  on  the  river — and 
Domitius,  whom  we  remember  as  trying  to  hold  Mar¬ 
seilles  against  young  Brutus  and  Trebonius,  the  left. 
Caesar  had  80  cohorts,  or  eight  legions,  which  should 
have  numbered  48,000  men  had  his  legions  been  full 
— but,  as  he  tells  us,  he  led  but  22,000  legionaries,  so 
that  his  ranks  were  deficient  by  more  than  a  half. 

As  was  his  custom,  he  had  his  tenth  legion  to  the 
right,  away  from  the  river.  The  ninth,  terribly 
thinned  by  what  had  befallen  it  within  the  lines  at 
Petra,  joined  to  the  eleventh,  lay  next  the  river,  form¬ 
ing  part  of  Caesar’s  left  wing.  Antony  commanded 
the  left  wing,  Domitius  Calvinus,  whom  Caesar  some- 


PEARS  ALIA. 


155 


times  calls  by  one  name  and  sometimes  by  the  other, 
the  centre, — and  Sulla  the  right.  Caesar  placed  himself 
to  the  right,  with  his  tenth  legion,  opposite  to  Pompey. 
As  far  as  we  can  learn,  there  was  but  little  in  the 
nature  of  the  ground  to  aid  either  of  them; — and  so 
the  fight  began. 

There  is  not  much  complication,  and  perhaps  no 
great  interest,  in  the  account  of  the  actual  battle  as  it 
is  given  by  Caesar.  Caesar  makes  a  speech  to  his  army, 
which  was,  as  we  have  already  learned,  and  as  he  tells 
us  now,  the  accustomed  thing  to  do.  No  falser  speech 
was  ever  made  by  man,  if  he  spoke  the  words  which 
he  himself  reports.  He  first  of  all  reminds  them  how 
they  themselves  are  witnesses  that  he  has  done  his 
best  to  insure  peace; — and  then  he  calls  to  their  memory 
certain  mock  treaties  as  to  peace;  in  which,  when  seek¬ 
ing  delay,  he  had  pretended  to  engage  himself  and 
his  enemy.  He  had  never  wasted,  he  told  them,  the 
blood  of  his  soldiers,  nor  did  he  desire  to  deprive 
the  Republic  of  either  army — “alterutro  exercitu” — of 
Pompey’s  army  or  of  his  own.  They  were  both 
Roman,  and  far  be  it  from  him  to  destroy  aught 
belonging  to  the  Republic.  We  must  acknowledge 
that  Caesar  was  always  chary  of  Roman  life  and  Roman 
blood.  He  would  spare  it  when  it  could  be  spared; 
but  he  could  spill  it  like  water  when  the  spilling  of 
it  was  necessary  to  his  end.  He  was  very  politic ;  but 
as  for  tenderness, — neither  he  nor  any  Roman  knew 
what  it  was. 

Then  there  is  a  story  of  one  Crastinus,  who  declares 
that  whether  dead  or  alive  he  will  please  Caesar.  He 
throws  the  first  weapon  against  the  enemy  and  does 
please  Caesar.  But  he  has  to  please  by  his  death,  for 
he  is  killed  in  his  effort. 


156  THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


Pompey  orders  that  his  first  rank  shall  not  leave  its 
order  to  advance,  but  shall  receive  the  shock  of  Caesar’s 
attack.  Caesar  points  out  to  us  that  he  is  wrong  in 
this,  because  the  very  excitement  of  a  first  attack  gives 
increased  energy  and  strength  to  the  men.  Caesar’s 
legionaries  are  told  to  attack,  and  they  rush  over  the  v 
space  mterveneiDg  between  the  first  ranks  to  do  so. 
But  they  are  so  well  trained  that  they  pause  and 
catch  their  breath  before  they  throw  their  weapons. 
Then  they  throw  their  piles  and  draw  their  swords, 
and  the  ranks  of  the  two  armies  are  close  pitted  against 
each  other. 

But  Pompey  had  thought  that  he  could  win  the 
battle,  almost  without  calling  on  his  legionaries  for 
any  exertion,  by  the  simple  strategic  movement  of  his 
numerous  cavalry  and  auxiliaries.  He  outnumbered 
Caesar  altogether,  but  in  these  arms  he  could  overwhelm 
him  with  a  cloud  of  horsemen  and  of  archers.  But 
Caesar  also  had  known  of  these  clouds.  He  fought 
now  as  always  with  a  triple  rank  of  legionaries, — but 
behind  his  third  rank, — or  rather  somewhat  to  their 
right  shoulder, — he  had  drawn  up  a  choice  body  of  men 
picked  from  his  third  line, — a  fourth  line  as  it  were, 
— whose  business  it  was  to  stand  against  Pompey ’s 
clouds  when  the  attempt  should  be  made  by  these 
clouds  upon  their  right  flank.  Caesar’s  small  body  of 
cavalry  did  give  way  before  the  Pompeian  clouds,  and 
the  horsemen  and  the  archers  and  the  slingers  swept 
round  upon  Caesar’s  flank.  But  they  swept  round 
upon  destruction.  Caesar  gave  the  word  to  that  fourth 
line  of  picked  men.  “  Illi — they,”  says  Caesar,  “ran 
forward  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  and  with  their 
standards  in  advance  attacked  the  cavalry  of  Pompey 
with  such  violence  that  none  of  them  could  stand  their 


PHARSALIA. 


157 


ground; — so  that  all  not  only  were  forced  from  the 
ground,  but  being  at  once  driven  in  panic,  they  sought 
the  shelter  of  the  highest  mountains  near  them.  And 
when  they  were  thus  removed,  all  the  archers  and  the 
slingers,  desolate  and  unarmed,  without  any  one  to  take 
care  of  them,  were  killed  in  heaps.”  Such  is  Caesar’s 
account  of  Pompey’s  great  attack  of  cavalry  which 
was  to  win  the  battle  without  giving  trouble  to  the 
legions. 

Caesar  acknowledges  that  Pompey’s  legionaries  drew 
their  swords  bravely  and  began  their  share  of  the  fight¬ 
ing  well.  Then  at  once  he  tells  us  of  the  failure  on 
the  part  of  the  cavalry  and  of  the  slaughter  of  the 
poor  auxiliary  slingers,  and  in  the  very  next  sentence 
gives  us  to  understand  that  the-  battle  was  won. 
Though  Pompey’s  legions  were  so  much  more  numer¬ 
ous  than  those  of  Caesar,  we  are  told  that  Caesar’s  third 
line  attacked  the  Pompeian  legionaries  when  they  were 
“defessi” — worn  out.  The  few  cohorts  of  picked 
men  who  in  such  marvelous  manner  had  dispersed 
Pompey’s  clouds,  following  on  their  success,  turned  the 
flank  of  Pompey’s  legions  and  carried  the  day.  That 
it  was  all  as  Caesar  says  there  can  bq  little  doubt. 
That  he  won  the  battle  there  can,  we  presume,  be 
no  doubt.  Pompey  at  once  flew  to  his  camp  and 
endeavored  to  defend  it.  But  such  defence  was 
impossible,  and  Pompey  wras  driven  to  seek  succor 
in  flight.  He  found  a  horse  and  a  few  companions, 
and  did  not  stop  till  he  was  on  the  sea-shore.  Then 
he  got  on  board  a  provision-vessel,  and  was  heard  to 
complain  that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  those  very  men 
from  whose  hands  he  had  expected  victory. 

We  are  told  with  much  picturesque  effect  how 
Caesar’s  men,  hungry,  accustomed  to  endurance,  patient 


158  TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 

in  all  their  want,  found  Pompey’s  camp  prepared  for 
victory,  and  decked  in  luxurious  preparation  for  the 
senatorial  victors.  Couches  were  strewn,  and  plate 
was  put  out,  and  tables  prepared,  and  the  tents  of  these 
happy  ones  were  adorned  with  fresh  ivy.  The  sena¬ 
torial  happy  ones  have  but  a  bad  time  of  it,  either 
perishing  in  their  flight,  or  escaping  into  the  desert 
solitudes  of  the  mountains.  Caesar  follows  up  his  con¬ 
quest,  aud  on  the  day  after  the  battle  compels  the  great 
body  of  the  fugitives  to  surrender  at  discretion.  He 
surrounds  them  on  the  top  of  a  hill  and  shuts  them 
out  from  water,  and  they  do  surrender  at  discretion. 
With  stretched-out  hands,  prone  upon  the  earth,  these 
late  conquerors,  the  cream  of  the  Roman  power,  who 
had  so  lately  sworn  to  conquer  ere  they  slept,  weeping, 
beg  for  mercy.  Caesar,  having  said  a  few  words  to 
them  of  his  clemency,  gave  them  their  lives.  He  rec¬ 
ommends  them  to  the  care  of  his  own  men,  and  desires 
that  they  may  neither  be  slaughtered  nor  robbed. 

Caesar  says  he  lost  only  200  soldiers  in  that  battle 
— and  among  them  30  officers,  all  brave  men.  That 
gallant  Crastinus  was  among  the  30.  Of  Pompey’s 
army  15,000  had  been  killed,  and  24,000  had  surren¬ 
dered!  .  180  standards  and  9  eagles  were  taken  and 
brought  to  Caesar.  The  numbers  seem  to  us  to  be 
almost  incredible,  whether  we  look  at  those  given  to 
us  in  regard  to  the  conqueror  or  the  conquered.  Caesar’s 
account,  however,  of  that  day’s  work  has  hitherto  been 
taken  as  anthoritative,  and  it  is  too  late  now  to  ques¬ 
tion  it.  After  this  fashion  was  the  battle  of  Pharsalia 
won,  and  the  so-called  Roman  Republic  brought  to  an 
end. 

But  Caesar  by  no  means  thought  that  his  work  was 
done; — nor  indeed  was  it  nearly  done.  It  was  now 


THE  FLIGHT  OF  POMPEY. 


159 


clearly  his  first  duty  to  pursue  Pompey, — whom, 
should  he  escape,  the  outside  provinces  and  distant 
allies  of  the  Republic  would  soon  supply  with  another 
army.  “  Caesar  thought  that  Pompey  was  to  be  pur¬ 
sued  to  the  neglecting  of  all  other  things.”  In  the 
mean  time  Pompey,  who  seems  to  have  been  panic- 
struck  by  his  misfortune,  fled  with  a  few  friends  down 
the  iEgean  Sea,  picked  his  young  wife  up  at  an  island 
as  he  went,  and  made  his  way  to  Egypt.  The  story  of 
his  murder  by  those  who  had  the  young  King  of  Egypt 
in  their  keeping  is  well-known  and  need  not  detain  us. 
Caesar  tells  it  very  shortly.  Pompey  sends  to  young 
Ptolemy  for  succor  and  assistance,  trusting  to  past 
friendship  between  himself  and  the  young  king’s  father. 
Ptolemy  is  in  the  hands  of  eunuchs,  adventurers,  and 
cut-throat  soldiers,  and  has  no  voice  of  his  own  in  the 
matter.  But  these  ruffians  think  it  well  to  have  Pom¬ 
pey  out  of  the  way,  and  therefore  they  murder  him. 
Achillas,  a  royal  satrap,  and  Septimius,  a  Roman  sol¬ 
dier,  go  out  to  Pompey’s  vessel,  as  messengers  from  the 
king,  and  induce  them  to  come  down  into  their  boat. 
Then,  in  the  very  sight  of  his  wife,  he  is  slaughtered, 
and  his  head  is  carried  away  as  proof  of  the  deed. 
Such  was  the  end  of  Pompey,  for  whom  no  fortune 
had  seemed  to  be  too  great,  till  Caesar  came  upon  the 
scene.  We  are  told  by  the  Roman  poet,  Lucan,  who 
took  the  battle  of  Pharsalia  as  his  difficult  theme,  that 
Caesar  could  bear  no  superior,  and  Pompey  no  equal. 
The  poet  probably  wished  to  make  the  latter  the  more 
magnanimous  by  the  comparison.  To  us,  as  we  ex¬ 
amine  the  character  of  the  two  general,  Caesar  seems 
at  least  as  jealous  of  power  as  his  son-in-law,  and  cer¬ 
tainly  was  the  more  successful  of  the  two  in  extruding 
all  others  from  a  share  in  the  power  which  he  coveted. 


160  the  civil  war,— third  book . 


Poihpey  in  the  triumvirate  admitted  his  junior  to 
more,  as  he  must  have  felt  it,  than  equal  power: 
Caesar  in  the  triumvirate  simply  made  a  stepping-stone 
of  the  great  man  who  was  his  elder.  Pompey  at 
Thessaly  was  forced  to  divide  at  least  the  name  of  his 
power  with  Scipio,  his  last  father-in-law :  but  Caesar 
never  gave  a  shred  of  his  mantle  to  be  worn  by  another 
soldier. 

In  speaking,  however,  of  the  character  of  Pompey, 
and  in  comparing  it]  with  that  of  his  greater  rival,  it 
may  probably  be  said  of  him  that  in  all  his  contests, 
both  military  and  political,  he  was  governed  by  a  love 
of  old  Rome,  and  of  the  Republic  as  the  greatest 
national  institution  which  the  world  had  ever  known, 
and  by  a  feeling  which  we  call  patriotism,  and  of 
which  Caesar  was, — perhaps,  we  may  say,  too  great  to 
be  capable.  Pompey  desired  to  lead,  hut  to  lead  the 
beloved  Republic.  Caesar,  caring,  nothing  for  the 
things  of  old,  with  no  reverence  for  the  past,  utterly 
destitute  of  that  tenderness  for  our  former  footsteps 
which  makes  so  many  of  us  cling  with  passionate 
fondness  to  convicted  errors,  desired  to  create  out  of 
the  dust  of  the  Republic, — which  fate  and  his  genius 
allowed  him  to  recast  as  he  would, — something  which 
should  be  better  and  truer  than  the  Republic. 

The  last  seven  chapters  of  the  third  book  of  this 
Commentary  form  a  commencement  of  the  record  of 
the  Alexandrine  war, — w7hich,  beyond  those  seven 
chapters,  Caesar  himself  did  not  write.  That  he 
should  have  written  any  Commentary  amidst  the 
necessary  toils  of  war,  and  the  perhaps  more  pressing 
emergencies  of  his  political  condition,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  marvels  of  human  power.  He  tells  us  now, 
that  having  delayed  but  a  few  days  in  Asia,  he  followed 


CAESAR  FOLLOWS  POMPET  TO  EGYPT.  161 


Pompey  first  to  Cyprus  and  then  to  Egypt,  taking  with 
him  as  his  entire  army  three  thousand  two  hundred 
men.  “The  rest,  worn  out  with  wounds,  and  battles, 
and  toil,  and  the  greatness  of  the  journey,  could  not 
follow  him.”  But  he  directed  that  legions  should  be 
made  up  for  him  from  the  remnants  of  Pompey ’s  broken 
army,  and,  with  a  godlike  trust  in  the  obedience  of  ab¬ 
sent  vassals,  he  went  on  to  Egypt.  *He  tells  us  that 
he  was  kept  in  Alexandria  by  Etesian  winds.  But  we 
know  also  that  Cleopatra  came  to  him  at  Alexandria, 
requiring  his  services  in  her  contest  for  the  crown  of 
Egypt;  and  knowing  at  what  price  she  bought  them, 
we  doubt  the  persistent  malignity  of  the  Etesian  winds. 
Had  Cleopatra  been  a  swarthy  Nubian,  as  some  have 
portrayed  her,  Caesar,  we  think,  would  have  left  Alex¬ 
andria  though  the  Etesian  winds  had  blown  in  his  very 
teeth.  All  winds  filled  Caesar’s  sails.  Caesar  gets  pos¬ 
session  of  Cleopatra’s  brother  Ptolemy,  who,  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  their  father’s  will,  was  to  have  reigned  in 
conjunction  with  his  sister,  and  the  Alexandrians 
rise  against  him  in  great  force.  He  slays  Photinus, 
the  servant  of  King  Ptolemy,  has  his  own  ambassador 
slain,  and  burns  the  royal  fleet  of  Egypt, — burning 
with  it,  unfortunately,  the  greater  part  of  the  royal 
library.  “These  things  were  the  beginning  of  the 
Alexandrine  war.”  These  are  the  last  words  of  Caesar’s 
last  Commentary. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


CONCLUSION. 

Haying  concluded  his  ten  short  chapters  descriptive 
of  the  ten  hooks  of  the  Commentaries  written  by  Cae¬ 
sar  himself,  the  author  of  this  little  volume  has  finished 
his  intended  task, — and  as  he  is  specially  anxious  not 
to  he  thought  to  have  made  an  attempt  at  writing  his¬ 
tory,  he  would  not  add  any  concluding  words,  were  it 
not  that  three  other  Commentaries  of  Caesar’s  three 
other  wars  were  added  to  Caesar’s  Commentaries  by 
other  writers.  There  is  the  Commentary  on  the  Alex¬ 
andrine  war, — written  probably  by  Hirtius,  the  author 
of  the  last  book  of  the  Gallic  war;  and  two  Commen¬ 
taries  on  the  African  war  and  the  Spanish  war, — writ¬ 
ten,  as  the  critics  seem  to  think,  by  one  Oppius,  a 
friend  whom  Caesar  loved  and  trusted.  The  Alexan¬ 
drine  war  was  a  war  of  itself,  in  which  Caesar  was  in 
volved  by  his  matchless  audacity  in  following  Pompey 
into  Egypt,  and  perhaps  by  the  sweetness  of  Cleopa¬ 
tra’s  charms.  And  this  led  also  to  a  war  in  Asia  Minor, 
the  account  of  which  is  included  with  that  of  his  Egyp¬ 
tian  campaign.  The  African  war,  and  that  afterwards 
carried  on  in  Spain  with  the  object  of  crushing  out  the 
sparks  of  Pompeian  revolt  against  his  power,  are  sim¬ 
ply  the  latter  portions  of  the  civil  war,  and  their  re- 


CONCLUSION. 


163 


cords  might  have  been  written  as  chapters  added  to  the 
Commentary  “  De  Bello  Civili.” 

Alexandria,  when  Caesar  landed  there  in  pursuit  of 
Pompey  and  had  offered  to  him  as  a  graceful  tribute 
on  his  first  arrival  the  head  of  his  murdered  rival,  was 
a  city  almost  as  populous  and  quite  as  rich  as  Rome; 
and  in  the  city,  and  throughout  the  more  fertile  parts 
of  Egypt,  there  was  a  crowd  of  Roman  soldiers  left 
there  to  support  and  to  overawe  the  throne  of  the 
Ptolemies.  Caesar,  with  hardly  more  than  half  a  full 
legion  to  support  him,  enters  Alexandria  as  though 
obedience  were  due  to  him  by  all  in  Egypt  as  Roman 
consul.  He  at  once  demands  an  enormous  sum  of 
money,  which  he  claims  as  due  to  himself  personally 
for  services  rendered  to  a  former  Ptolemy;  he  takes 
possession  of  the  person  of  Ptolemy  the  young  king, — 
and  is  taken  possession  of  by  Cleopatra,  the  young 
king’s  sister,  who  was  joint  heir  with  her  brother  to  the 
throne.  In  all  his  career  there  was  perhaps  nothing 
more  audacious  than  his  conduct  in  Egypt.  The  Alex¬ 
andrians,  or  rather  perhaps  the  Roman  army  in  Egypt 
under  the  leading  of  the  young  king’s  satraps,  rise 
against  Caesar,  and  he  is  compelled  to  fortify  himself  in 
the  town.  He  contrives,  however,  to  burn  all  the 
Egyptian  fleet,  and  with  it  unfortunately  the  royal 
library,  as  we  were  told  by  himself  at  the  end  of  the 
last  Commentary.  He  at  length  allows  Ptolemy  to  go, 
giving  him  back  to  the  Egyptians,  and  thinking  that 
the  young  king’s  presence  may  serve  to  allay  the  enmity 
of  the  Alexandrians.  The  young  king  wept  at  leaving 
Caesar,  and  declared  that  even  his  own  kingdom 
was  not  so  dear  to  him  as  the  companionship  of 
Caesar.  But  the  crafty  false-faced  boy  turns  against 
Caesar  as  soon  as  he  is  free  to  do  so.  Caesar  never  was 


164 


CONCLUSION. 


in  greater  danger;  and  as  one  reads  one  feels  one's  self 
to  be  deprived  of  the  right  to  say  that  no  more  insane 
thing  was  ever  done  than  Csesar  did  when  he  swag¬ 
gered  into  Alexandria  without  an  army  at  his  back, — 
only  by  the  remembrance  that  Csesar  was  Caesar. 
First;  because  he  wanted  some  ready  money,  and 
secondly,  because  Cleopatra  was  pretty,  Caesar  nearly 
lost  the  world  in  Egypt. 

But  there  comes  to  his  help  a  barbarian  ally, — a 
certain  Mithridates  of  Pergamus,  a  putative  son  of  the 
great  Mithridates  of  Pontus.  Mithridates  brings  an 
army  to  Caesar’s  rescue,  and  does  rescue  him.  A  great 
battle  is  fought  on  the  Kile, — a  battle  which  would  have 
been  impossible  to  Caesar  had  not  Mithridates  come  to 
his  aid,— and  the  Egyptians  are  utterly  dispersed. 
Young^Ptolemy  is  drowned;  Cleopatra  is  settled  on  her 
throne;  and  Egypt  becomes  subject  to  Caesar.  Then 
Caesar  hurries  into  Asia,  finding  it  necessary  to  quell 
the  arrogance  of  a  barbarian  who  had  dared  to  defeat  a 
Koman  General.  The  unfortunate  conqurer  Pharnaces, 
the  undoubted  son  of  Mithridates  of  Pontus.  But  Caesar 
comes,  and  sees,  and  conquers.  He  engages  Pharnaces 
at  Zela,  and  destroys  his  army,  and  then,  we  are  told, 
inscribed  upon  his  banners  those  insolent  words — 
“  Yeni,  vidi,  vici.”  He  had  already  been  made  Dic¬ 
tator  of  the  Roman  Empire  for  an  entire  year,  and  had 
reveled  with  Cleopatra  at  Alexandria,  and  was  becom¬ 
ing  a  monarch. 

These  were  the  campaigns  of  the  year  47  b.  c.  ,  and 
the  record  of  them  is  made  in  the  Commentary  ‘  ‘  De 
Bello  Alexandrino.” 

In  the  mean  time  things  have  not  been  going  altogether 
smoothly  for  Csesar  in  Italy,  although  his  friends  at 
Rome  have  made  him  Dictator.  His  soldiers  have  mu- 


CONCLUSION 


165 


timed  against  their  officers,  and  against  his  authority; 
and  a  great  company  of  Pompeians  is  collected  in  that 
province  of  Africa  in  which  poor  Curio  was  conquered 
by  Juba, — when  Juba  had  Roman  senators  walking 
in  his  train,  and  Caesar’s  army  was  destroyed.  The 
province  called  by  the  name  of  Africa  lay  just  opposite 
to  Sicily,  and  was  blessed  with  that  Roman  civilization 
which  belonged  to  the  possessions  of  the  Republic 
which  were  nearest  to  Rome,  tlie  great  centre  of 
all  things.  It  is  now  the  stronghold  of  the  Republi¬ 
can  faction, — as  being  the  one  spot  of  Roman  ground  in 
which  Caesar  had  failed  of  success.  Pompey,  indeed,  is 
no  more,  but  Pompey ’s  two  sons  are  here, — and  Scipio, 
Pompey’s  father-in-law,  whom  Pompey  had  joined  with 
himself  in  the  command  at  Pharsalus.  Labienus  is 
here,  who,  since  he  turned  from  Caesar,  has  been  more 
Pompeian  than  Pompey  himself;  and  Afranius,  to 
whom  Caesar  was  so  kind  in  Spain;  and  Petreius  and 
King  Juba, — of  whom  a  joint  story  has  yet  to  be  told; 
and  Yarns,  who  held  the  province  against  Curio; — and 
last  of  all  there  is  that  tower  of  strength,  the  great  Cato, 
the  most  virtuous  and  impracticable  of  men,  who, 
in  spite  of  his  virtue,  is  always  in  the  wrong,  and  of 
whom  the  world  at  large  only  remembers  that  he  was 
fond  of  wine,  and  that  he  destroyed  himself  at  Utica. 

They  are  all  at  Utica, — and  to  them  for  the  present 
Utica  is  Rome.  They  establish  a  Senate;  and  Scipio, 
who  is  unworthy  of  the  great  name  he  bears,  and  is  in¬ 
competent  as  a  general,  is  made  commander-in-chief, 
because  Cato  decides  that  law  and  routine  so  require. 
Scipio  had  been  consul, — had  been  joint  commander 
with  Pompey, — and  his  rank  is  the  highest.  The  same 
argument  had  been  used  when  he  was  joined  in  that 
command, — that  it  was  fitting  that  such  power  should 


166 


CONCLUSION. 


be  given  to  him  because  be  was  of  consular  rank.  The 
command  of  the  Republican  fleet  had  been  intrusted 
to  Bibulus  on  the  same  ground.  We  never  bear  of 
Caesar  so  bestowing  promotion.  He  indeed  is  now  and 
again  led  away  by  another  fault,  trusting  men  simply 
because  he  loves  them, — by  what  we  may  call  favorit¬ 
ism, — as  he  did  when  he  allowed  Curio  to  lose  his  army 
in  Africa,  and  thus  occasioned  all  this  subsequent 
trouble.  As  we  read  of  Scipio’s  rank  we  remember  that 
we  have  heard  of  similar  cause  for  ill-judged  promo¬ 
tion  in  later  times.  The  Pompeians,  however,  collect 
an  enormous  army.  They  have  ten  Roman  legions, 
and  are  supported,  moreover,  by  the  whole  force  of 
King  Juba.  This  army,  we  are  told,  is  as  numerous  as 
that  which  Pompey  commanded  at  Pharsalus.  There 
is  quarreling  among  them  for  authority;  quarreling  as 
to  strategy;  jealousy  as  to  the  barbarian,  with  acknowl¬ 
edged  inability  to  act  without  him; — and  the  reader 
feels  that  it  is  all  in  vain.  Caesar  comes,  having  quelled 
the  mutiny  of  his  own  old  veterans  in  Italy  by  a  few 
words.  He  has  gone  among  them  fearing  nothing; 
they  demand  their  discharge — he  grants  it.  They 
require  the  rewards  which  they  think  to  be  their  due, 
and  he  tells  them  that  they  shall  have  their  money, — 
when  he  has  won  it  with  other  legions.  Then  he  ad¬ 
dresses  them  not  as  soldiers,  but  as  “  citizens  ” — “  Qui- 
rites;”  and  that  they  cannot  stand;  it  implies  that 
they  are  no  longer  the  invincible  soldiers  of  Caesar. 
They  rally  round  him;  the  legions  are  re-formed,  and 
he  lands  in  Africa  with  a  small  army  indeed, — at  first 
with  little  more  than  three  thousand  men, — and  is  again 
nearly  destroyed  in  the  very  first  battle.  But  after  a  few 
months  campaigning  the  old  story  has  to  be  told  again. 
A  great  battle  is  fought  at  Thapsus,  a  year  and  five 


CONCLUSION. 


167 


months  after  that  of  Pharsalia,  and  the  Republic  is 
routed  again  and  forever.  The  commentator  tells  us 
that  on  this  accasion  the  verocity  of  Caesar’s  veterans 
was  so  great,  that  by  no  entreaties,  by  no  commands, 
could  they  be  induced  to  cease  from  the  spilling  of  blood. 

But  of  the  destruction  of  the  leaders  separate  stories 
are  told  us.  Of  Cato  is  the  first  story,  and  that  best 
known  to  history.  He  finds  himself  obliged  to  sur¬ 
render  the  town  of  Utica  to  Caesar;  and  then,  “he him¬ 
self  having  carefully  settled  his  own  affairs,  and  having 
commended  his  children  to  Lucius  Caesar,  who  was 
then  acting  with  him  as  his  quaestor,  with  his  usual 
gait  and  countenance,  so  as  to  cause  no  suspicion,  he 
took  his  sword  with  him  into  his  bedroom  when  it  was 
his  time  to  retire  to  rest, — and  so  killed  himself.” 
Scipio  also  killed  himself.  Afranius  was  killed  by 
Caesar’s  soldiers.  Labienus,  and  the  two  sons  of  Pom- 
pey,  and  Yarus,  escaped  into  Spain.  Then  comes  the 
story  of  King  Juba  and  Petreius.  Juba  had  collected 
his  wives  and  children,  and  all  his  wealth  of  gold  and 
jewels  and  rich  apparel,  into  a  town  of  his  called  Zama; 
and  there  he  had  built  a  vast  funeral-pile,  on  which, 
in  the  event  of  his  being  conquered  by  Caeser,  he  in¬ 
tended  to  perish, — meaning  that  his  wives  and  children 
and  dependants  and  rich  treasure  should  all  be  burned 
with  him.  So,  when  he  was  defeated,  he  returned  to 
Zama;  but  his  wives  and  children  and  dependants, 
being  less  magnificently  minded  than  their  king,  and 
knowing  his  royal  purpose,  and  being  unwilling  to 
become  ornaments  to  his  euthanasia,  would  not  let 
him  enter  the  place.  Then  he  went  to  his  old  Ro¬ 
man  friend  Peterius,  and  they  two  sat  down  together 
to  supper.  Petreius  was  he  who  would  not  allow 
Afranius  to  surrender  to  Caesar  at  Lerida.  When  they 


168 


CONCLUSION. 


have  supped,  Juba  proposes  that  they  shall  fight  each 
other,  so  that  one  at  least  may  die  gloriously.  They 
do  fight,  and  Petreius  is  quickly  killed.  “Juba  being 
the  stronger,  easily  destined  the  weaker  Petreius  with 
his  sword.”  Then  the  barbarian  tried  to  kill  himself; 
but,  failing,  got  a  slave  to  finish  the  work.  The  battle 
of  Thapsus  was  fought,  b.c.  47.  Numidia  is  made  a 
province  by  Caesar,  and  so  Africa  is  won.  We  may 
say  that  the  Roman  Republic  died  with  Cato  at  Utica. 

The  Spanish  war,  which  afforded  matter  for  the  last 
Commentary,  is  a  mere  stamping  out  of  the  embers. 
Caesar,  after  the  affair  in  Africa,  goes  to  Rome;  and  the 
historian  begins  his  chronicle  by  telling  us  that  he  is 
detained  there  “  muneribus  dandis,” — by  the  distribu¬ 
tion  of  rewards, — keeping  his  promise,  no  doubt,  to  those 
veterans  whom  he  won  back  to  their  military  obedience 
by  calling  them  “Quirites,”  or  Roman  citizens.*  The 
sons  of  Pompey,  Cnaeus  and  Sextus,  have  collected  to¬ 
gether  a  great  number  of  men  to  support  their  worn-out 
cause,  and  we  are  told  that  in  the  battle  of  Munda 
more  than  30,000  men  perished.  But  that  was  the 
end  of  it.  Labienus  and  Yarus  are  killed;  and  the 
historian  tells  us  that  a  funeral  was  made  for  them. 
One  Scapula,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he  was  the  pro¬ 
moter  of  all  this  Spanish  rebellion,  eats  his  supper,  has 


*  Not  in  the  Commentary,  but  elsewhere,  we  learn  that  he 
now  triumphed  four  times,  for  four  different  victories,  taking 
care  to  claim  none  for  any  victory  won  over  Roman  soldiers. 
On  four  different  days  he  was  carried  through  the  city  with  his 
legions  and  his  spoils  and  his  captives.  His  first  triumph  was 
for  the  Gallic  wars;  and  on  that  day  Vercingetorix,  the  gallant 
Gaul  whom  we  remember,  and  who  had  now  been  six  years  in 
prison,  was  strangled  to  do  Csesar  honor.  I  think  we  hate 
Csesar  the  more  for  his  cruelty  to  those  who  were  not  Romans, 
because  policy  induced  him  to  spare  his  countrymen. 


CONCLUSION. 


169 


himself  anointed,  and  is  killed  on  his  funeral-pile. 
Cnaeus,  the  elder  son  of  Pompey,  escapes  wounded, 
but  at  last  is  caught  in  a  cave,  and  is  killed.  Sextus, 
the  younger,  escapes,  and  becomes  a  leading  rebel  for 
some  years  longer,  till  at  last  he  also  is  killed  by  one 
of  Antony’s  officers. 

This  Commentary  is  ended,  or  rather  is  brought  to 
an  untimely  close,  in  the  middle  of  a  speech  which 
Csesar  makes  to  the  inhabitants  of  Hipsala, — Seville, — 
in  which  he  tells  them  in  strong  language  how  well  he 
behaves  to  them,  and  how  very  badly  they  have  be¬ 
haved  to  him.  But  we  reach  an  abrupt  termination  in 
the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

After  the  battle  of  Munda  Caesar  returned  to  Borne, 
and  enjoyed  one  year  of  magnificent  splendor  and 
regal  power  in  Rome.  He  is  made  Consul  for  ten  years, 
and  Dictator  for  life.  He  is  still  high  priest,  and  at 
last  is  called  King.  He  makes  many  laws,  and  perhaps 
adds  the  crowning  jewel  to  his  imperishable  diadem  of 
glory  by  reforming  the  calendar,  and  establishing  a 
proper  rotation  of  months  and  days,  so  as  to  comprise 
a  properly-divided  year.  But  as  there  is  no  Commen¬ 
tary  of  this  year  of  Caesar’s  life,  our  readers  will  not 
expect  that  we  should  treat  of  it  here.  How  he  was 
struck  to  death  by  Brutus,  Cassius,  and  the  other  con¬ 
spirators,  and  fell  at  the  foot  of  Pompey’s  statue,  gather¬ 
ing  his  garments  around  him  gracefully,  with  a  policy 
that  was  glorious  and  persistent  to  the  last,  is  known 
to  all  men  and  women. 

“Then  burst  his  mighty  heart; 

And  in  his  mantle  muffling  up  his  face, 

Even  at  the  base  of  Pompey’s  statue, 

Which  all  the  while  ran  blood,  Great  Caesar  fell.” 


170 


CONCLUSION. 


That  lie  had  done  his  work,  and  that  he  died  in 
time  to  save  his  name  and  fame  from  the  evil  deeds 
of  which  unlimited  power  in  the  State  would  too 
probably  have  caused  the  tyrant  to  be  guilty,  was 
perhaps  not  the  least  fortunate  circumstance  in  a  career 
which  for  good  fortune  has  been  unequaled  in  history. 


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THE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS.  BY  CHARLES  F.  RICHARD- 

son,  Prof,  of  English  Literature  in  Dartmouth  College.  New 

Acme  edition,  208  pages,  Small  Pica  type,  leaded.  Very  handsome. 

Extra  cloth,  25  cts.;  half  Russia,  red  edges,  35  cts.;  gilt  edges, 

ornamented,  35  cts. 

“Mr,  Richardson’s  ‘The  Choice  of  Books’  is 
one  of  the  very  best  guides  ever  given,  and  not 
only  a  trustworthy  guide,  but  exceedingly  pleas¬ 
ant  reading.” — Our  Continent ,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

“It  is  wider  and  more  practicable  in  its  scope 
than  Carlyle’s  essay  of  the  same  title,  and  is 
written  by  a  man  who  has  the  same  gentle  love 
for  books  that  old  Izaak  Walton  had  for  angling. 
He  deals  with  them  tenderly,  reverently,  but 
learnedly  withal,  informing  the  collector  not  only 
what  to  read,  but  how  to  use  and  preserve  his 
precious  volumes.  The  style  is  refined,  but  bright 
and  chatty.” — Daily  Times ,  Brooklyn. 

‘  ‘  One  of  the  most  sensible  and  really  practical 
works  on  the  subject  of  which  it  treats.  The 
scope  of  the  work  is  much  broader  than  its  title 
would  lead  one  to  expect.  The  young  student 
who  desires  clear,  calm,  and  judicious  counsel  in 
regard  to  books  and  reading,  and  the  more  ma¬ 
ture  layman  who  would  use  his  leisure  hours  in 
supplementing  the  deficiencies  of  early  life,  can 
hardly  fail  to  derive  great  advantage  from  the 
careful  perusal  of  this  excellent  little  book.” — 
Christian  Intelligencer,  New  York. 

“  Is  full  of  suggestions,  and  abounds  in  quota¬ 
tions  from  many  sources.” — Courier- Journal, 
Louisville. 

“Mr.  Richardson  is  an  editor  who  adds  to  a 
wide  acquaintance  with  the  best  books  an  edi¬ 
torial  aptness  for  perceiving  what  is  really  worth 
while ;  and  his  book  is  more  thoughtful,  more  dis¬ 
criminating  and  fitted  to  be  more  useful  than 
many  more  pretentious  volumes.  ” — Journal,  Bos¬ 
ton,  Mass,  <2) 


CICERO 

*  * 


BY  THE 

BEY.  W.  LUCAS  COLLINS,  M.A., 


AUTHOR  OB' 

“ETONIAN A,”  “THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS,”  ETC. 


NEW  YORK : 

JOHN  B.  ALDEN,  Published 

1883. 


I  have  to  acknowledge  my  obligations  to  Mr. 
Forsyth’s  well-known  “  Life  of  Cicero,”  especially  as  a 
guide  to  the  biographical  materials  which  abound  in 
his  Orations  and  Letters.  Mr.  Long’s  scholarly  volumes 
have  also  been  found  useful.  For  the  translations, 
such  as  they  are,  I  am  responsible.  If  I  could  have 
met  with  any  which  seemed  to  me  more  satisfactory,  I 
would  gladly  have  adopted  them.  W.  L.  C. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE. 

Chapter  I.  Biographical — Early  Life  and  Education.  1 

a  II.  “  Public  Career — Impeach¬ 
ment  of  Verres .  11 

i(  III.  “  The  Consulship  and  Cati¬ 
line .  27 

“  IV.  %“  Exile  and  Return .  45 

**  V.  “  Cicero  and  Caesar .  61 

**  VI.  “  Cicero  and  Antony  .  66 

“  VII.  Character  as  Politician  and  Orator .  78 

“  VIII.  Minor  Characteristics .  94 

“  IX.  Cicero’s  Correspondence .  102 

“  X.  Essays  on  “  Old  Age  ”  and  “  Friendship  ”  122 

“  XI.  Cicero’s  Philosophy .  134 

4t  XIL  Cicero’s  Religion . 165 


. 

. 

* 

■ 


. 

;  .  \  - 


rs 


.  w 


CICERO. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EARLY  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION. 

When  we  speak,  in  the  language  of  our  title-page,  of 
the  “Ancient  Classics,”  we  must  remember  that  the 
word  “ancient”  is  to  be  taken  with  a  considerable  dif¬ 
ference,  in  one  sense.  Ancient  all  the  Greek  and 
Roman  authors  are,  as  dated  comparatively  with  our 
modern  era.  But  as  to  the  antique  character  of  their 
writings,  there  is  often  a  difference  which  is  not  merely 
one  of  date.  The  poetry  of  Homer  and  Hesiod  is 
ancient,  as  having  been  sung  and  written  when  the 
society  in  which  the  authors  lived,  and  to  which  they 
addressed  themselves,  was  in  its  comparative  infancy. 
The  chronicles  of  Herodotus  are  ancient,  partly  from 
their  subject-matter  and  partly  from  their  primitive 
style.  But  in  this  sense  there  are  ancient  authors 
belonging  to  every  nation  which  has  a  literature  of  its 
own.  Viewed  in  this  light,  the  history  of  Thucydides, 
the  letters  and  orations  of  Cicero,  are  not  ancient  at  all. 
Bede,  and  Chaucer,  and  Matthew  of  Paris,  and  Frois¬ 
sart,  are  far  more  redolent  of  antiquity.  The  several 
books  which  make  up  what  we  call  the  Bible  are  all 
ancient,  no  doubt;  but  even  between  the  Chronicles  of 
the  Kings  of  Israel  and  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  there  is  a 
far  wider  real  interval  than  the  mere  lapse  of  centuries. 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


2 


la  011c  respect  the  times  of  Cicero,  in  spite  of  their 
complicated  politics,  should  have  more  interest  for  a 
modern  reader  than  most  of  what  is  called  Ancient 
History.  *Forget  the  date  but  for  a  moment,  and  there 
is  scarcely  anything  ancient  about  them.  The  scenes 
and  actors  are  modern — terribly  modern;  far  more  so 
than  the  middle  ages  of  Christendom.  Between  the 
times  of  our  own  Plantagenets  and  Georges,  for  in¬ 
stance,  there  is  a  far  wider  gap,  in  all  but  years,  than 
between  the  consulships  of  Caesar  and  Napoleon.  The 
habits  of  life,  the  ways  of  thinking,  the  family  affec¬ 
tions,  the  tastes  of  the  Romans  of  Cicero’s  day,  were  in 
many  respects  wonderfully  like  our  own;  the  political 
jealousies  and  rivalries  have  repeated  themselves  again 
and  again  in  the  last  two  or  three  centuries  of  Europe; 
their  code  of  political  honor  and  morality,  debased  as 
it  was,  was  not  much  lower  than  that  which  was  held  by 
some  great  statesmen  a  generation  or  two  before  us. 
Let  us  be  thankful  if  the  most  frightful  of  their  vices 
were  the  exclusive  shame  of  paganism. 

It  was  in  an  old  but  humble  country  house,  near  the 
town  of  Arpinum,  under  the  Yolscian  hills,  that  Mar- 
cus  Tullius  Cicero  was  born,  one  hundred  and  six  years 
before  the  Christian  era.  The  family  was  of  ancient 
“  equestrian”  *  dignity,  but  as  none  of  its  members  had 
hitherto  borne  any  office  of  state,  it  did  not  rank  as 
“  noble.”  His  grandfather  and  his  father  had  borne  the 
same  three  names — the  last  an  inheritance  from  some 
forgotten  ancestor,  who  had  either  been  successful  in 
the  cultivation  of^vetches  ( cicer ),  or,  as  less  compliment- 

*  The  Equites  were  originally  those  who  served  in  the  Roman 
cavalry;  but  latterly  all  citizens  came  to  be  reckoned  in  the  class 
who  had  a  certain  property  qualification,  and  who  could  prove 
free  descent  up  to  their  grandfather. 


CICERO . 


3 


ary  traditions  said,  liad  a  wart  of  that  shape  upon  his 
nose.  The  grandfather  was  still  living  when  the  little 
Cicero  was  born ;  a  stout  old  conservative,  who  had  suc¬ 
cessfully  resisted  the  attempt  to  introduce  vote  by  bal¬ 
lot  into  his  native  town,  and  hated  the  Greeks  (who 
were  just  then  coming  into  fashion)  as  heartily  as  his 
English  representative,  fifty  years  ago,  might  have 
hated  a  Frenchman.  “  The  more  Greek  a  man  knew,” 
he  protested,  “  the  greater  rascal  he  turned  out.”  The 
father  wras  a  man  of  quiet  habits,  taking  no  part  even  in 
local  politics,  given  to  books,  and  to  the  enlargement 
and  improvement  of  the  old  family  house,  which,  up  to 
his  time,  seems  not  to  have  been  more  than  a  modest 
grange.  The  situation  (on  a  small  island  formed  by 
the  little  river  Fibrenus*)  was  beautiful  and  romantic; 
and  the  love  for  it,  which  grew  up  with  the  young 
Cicero  as  a  child,  he  never  lost  in  the  busy  days  of  his 
manhood.  It  was  in  his  eyes,  he  said,  what  Ithaca  was 
to  Ulysses, 

“  A  rough,  wild  nurse-land,  but  whose  crops  are  men.” 

There  was  an  aptness  in  the  quotation;  for  at  Arpinum, 
a  few  years  before,  was  born  that  Caius.  Marius,  seven 
times  consul  of  Rome,  who  had  at  least  the  virtue  of 
manhood  in  him,  if  he  had  few  besides. 

But  the  quiet  country  gentleman  was  ambitious  for 
his  son.  Cicero’s  father,  like  Horace’s,  determined  to 
give  him  the  best  education  in  his  power;  and  of  cours# 
the  best  education  was  to  be  found  in  Rome,  and  the  best 
teachers  there  were  Greeks.  So  to  Rome  young  Marcus 


*  Nowr  known  as  II  Fiume  della  Posta.  Fragments  of  Cicero’s 
villa  are  thought  to  have  been  discovered  built  into  the  walls  of 
the  deserted  convent  of  San  Dominico.  The  ruin  known  as 
“  Cicero’s  Tower”  has  probably  no  connection  with  him. 


4 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY . 


was  taken  in  due  time,  with  his  younger  brother 
Quintus.  They  lodged  with  their  uncle-in-law,  Aculeo, 
a  lawyer  of  some  distinction,  who  had  a  house  in  rather 
a  fashionable  quarter  of  the  city,  and  moved  in  good 
society;  and  the  two  boys  attended  the  Greek  lectures 
with  their  town  cousins.  Greek  was  as  necessary  a  part 
of  a  Roman  gentleman’s  education  in  those  days  as 
Latin  and  French  are  with  us  now;  like  Latin,  it  was 
the  key  to  literature  (for  the  Romans  had  as  yet,  it  must 
be  remembered,  nothing  worth  calling  literature  of  their 
own);  and  like  French,  it  was  the  language  of  refinement 
and  the  play  of  polished  society.  Let  us  hope  that  by  this 
time  the  good  old  grandfather  was  gathered  peacefully 
into  his  urn;  it  might  have  broken  his  heart  to  have  seen 
how  enthusiastically  his  grandson  Marcus  threw  him¬ 
self  into  this  new-fangled  study;  and  one  of  those  letters 
of  his  riper  years,  stuffed  full  of  Greek  terms  and  phrases 
even  to  affectation,  would  have  drawn  anything  but 
blessings  from  the  old  gentleman  if  he  had  lived  to  hear 
them  read. 

Young  Cicero  wrent  through  the  regular  curriculum 
— grammar,  rhetoric,  and  the  Greek  poets  and  histori¬ 
ans.  Like  many  other  youthful  geniuses  he  wrote  a 
good  deal  of  poetry  of  his  own,  which  his  friends,  as 
was  natural,  thought  very  highly  of  at  the  time,  and  of 
which  lie  himself  retained  the  same  good  opinion  to  the 
^nd  of  his  life,  as  would  have  been  natural  to  few  men 
except  Cicero.  But  his  more  important  studies  began 
after  lie  had  assumed  the  “white  gown”  which  marked 
the  emergence  of  the  young  Roman  from  boyhood  into 
more  responsible  life — at  sixteen  years  of  age.  He  then 
entered  on  a  special  education  for  the  bar.  It  could 
scarcely  be  called  a  profession,  for  an  advocate’s  prac¬ 
tice  at  Rome  was  gratuitous;  but  it  was  the  best  train- 


CICERO. 


5 


ing  for  public  life;  it  was  the  ready  means,  to  an  able 
and  eloquent  man,  of  gaining  that  popular  influence 
which  would  secure  his  election  in  due  course  to  the 
great  magistracies  which  formed  the  successive  steps  to 
political  power.  The  mode  of  studying  law  at  Rome 
bore  a  very  considerable  resemblance  to  the  prepara¬ 
tion  for  the  English  bar.  Our  modern  law-student  pur¬ 
chases  his  admission  to  the  chambers  of  some  special 
pleader  or  conveyancer,  where  he  is  supposed  to  learn 
his  future  business  by  copying  precedents  and  answer¬ 
ing  cases,  and  he  also  attends  the  public  lectures  at  the 
Inns  of  Court.  So  at  Rome  the  young  aspirant  was  to 
be  found  (but  at  a  much  earlier  hour  than  would  suit 
the  Temple  or  Lincoln’s  Inn)  in  the  open  hall  of  some 
great  jurist’s  house,  listening  to  his  opinions  given  to 
the  throng  of  clients  who  crowded  there  every  morn¬ 
ing;  while  his  more  zealous  pupils  would  accompany 
him  in  his  stroll  in  the  Forum,  and  attend  his  pleadings 
in  the  courts,  or  his  speeches  on  the  Rostra,  either  tak¬ 
ing  down  upon  their  tablets,  or  storing  in  their  memo¬ 
ries,  his  dicta  upon  legal  questions.*  In  such  wise  Cic¬ 
ero  became  the  pupil  of  Mucius  Scaevola,  whose  house 
was  called  “the  oracle  of  Rome” — scarcely  ever  leaving 
his  side,  as  he  himself  expresses  it;  and  after  that  great 
lawyer’s  death  attaching  himself  in  much  the  same  way 
to  a  younger  cousin  of  the  same  name  and  scarcely  less 
reputation.  Besides  this,  to  arm  himself  at  all  points 
for  his  proposed  career,  he  read  logic  with  Diodotus  the 
Stoic,  studied  the  action  of  vEsop  and  Roscius — then 
the  stars  of  the  Roman  stage — declaimed  aloud  like 


*  These  dicta,  or  “opinions,”  of  the  great  jurists  acquired  a 
sort  of  legal  validity  in  the  Roman  law  courts,  like  “  cases”  with 

us.  , 


6 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Demosthenes  in  private,  made  copious  notes,  practiced 
translation  in  order  to  form  a  written  style,  and  read 
hard  day  and  night.  He  trained  severely  as  an  intel¬ 
lectual  athlete;  and  if  none  of  his  contemporaries  at¬ 
tained  such  splendid  success,  perhaps  none  worked  so 
hard  for  it.  He  made  use,  too,  of  certain  special  ad¬ 
vantages  which  were  open  to  him — little  appreciated  or 
at  least  seldom  acknowledged  by  the  men  of  his  day — 
the  society  and  conversation  of  elegant  and  accom¬ 
plished  women.  In  Scsevola’s  domestic  circle,  where 
the  mother,  the  daughters,  and  the  granddaughters 
successively  seem  to  have  been  such  charming  talkers 
that  language  found  new  graces  from  their  lips,  the 
young  advocate  learned  some  of  his  not  least  valuable 
lessons.  “  It  makes  no  little  difference,”  said  he  in  his 
riper  years,  “  what  style  of  expression  one  becomes  fa¬ 
miliar  with  in  the  associations  of  daily  life.”  It  was 
another  point  of  resemblance  between  the  age  of  Cicero 
and  the  times  in  which  we  live — the  influence  of  the 
“  queens  of  society,”  whether  for  good  or  evil. 

But  no  man  could  be  completely  educated  for  a  pub¬ 
lic  career  at  Rome  until  he  had  been  a  soldier.  By 
what  must  seem  to  us  a  mistake  in  the  republican  sys¬ 
tem — a  mistake  which  we  have  seen  made  more  than 
once  in  the  late  American  war — high  political  offices 
were  necessarily  combined  with  military  command. 
The  highest  minister  of  state,  consul  or  praetor,  however 
hopelessly  civilian  in  tastes  and  antecedents,  might  be 
sent  to  conduct  a  campaign  in  Italy  or  abroad  at  a  few 
hours’  notice.  If  a  man  was  a  heaven-born  general,  all 
went  well;  if  not,  he  had  usually  a  chance  of  learning 
in  the  school  of  defeat.  It  was  desirable,  at  all  events, 
that  he  should  have  seen  what  war  was  in  his  youth. 
Young  Cicero  served  his  first  campaign,  at  the  age  of 


CICERO. 


7 


eighteen,  under  the  father  of  a  man  whom  he  was  to 
know  only  too  well  in  after  life — Pompey  the  Great — 
and  in  the  division  of  the  army  which  was  commanded 
by  Sylla  as  lieutenant-general.  He  bore  arms  only  for 
a  year  or  two,  and  probably  saw  no  very  arduous  ser¬ 
vice,  or  we  should  certainly  have  heard  of  it  from  him¬ 
self;  and  he  never  was  in  camp  again  until  he  took  the 
chief  command,  thirty-seven  years  afterwards,  as  pro- 
consul  in  Cilicia.  He  was  at  Rome,  leading  a  quiet 
student-life — happily  for  himself  too  young  to  be  forced 
or  tempted  into  an  active  part — during  the  bloody  feuds 
between  Sylla  and  the  younger  Marius. 

He  seems  to  have  made  his  first  appearance  as  an  ad¬ 
vocate  when  he  was  about  twenty-five,  in  some  suit  of 
which  we  know  nothing.  Two  years  afterwards  he  un¬ 
dertook  his  first  defense  of  a  prisoner  on  a  capital 
charge,  and  secured  by  his  eloquence  the  acquittal  of 
Sextus  Roscius  on  an  accusation  of  having  murdered 
his  father.  The  charge  appears  to  have  been  a  mere 
conspiracy,  wholly  unsupported  by  evidence;  but  the 
accuser  was  a  favorite  with  Sylla,  whose  power  was  all 
but  absolute;  and  the  innocence  of  the  accused  was  a 
very  insufficient  protection  before  a  Roman  jury  of 
those  days.  What  kind  of  considerations,  besides  the 
merits  of  the  case  and  the  rhetoric  of  counsel,  did  usually 
sway  these  tribunals,  we  shall  see  hereafter.  In  conse¬ 
quence  of  this  decided  success,  briefs  came  in  upon  the 
young  pleader  almost  too  quickly.  Like  many  other 
successful  orators  he  had  to  combat  some  natural  defi¬ 
ciencies;  he  had  inherited  from  his  father  a  somewhat 
delicate  constitution;  his  lungs  were  not  powerful,  and 
his  voice  required  careful  management;  and  the  loud 
declamation  and  vehement  action  which  he  had  adopted 
from  his  models — and  which  were  necessary  conditions 


8 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


of  success  in  tlie  large  arena  in  which  a  Roman  advocate 
had  to  plead — he  found  very  hard  work.  He  left  Rome 
for  a  while,  and  retired  for  rest  and  change  to  Athens. 

The  six  months  which  he  spent  there,  though  busy 
and  studious,  must  have  been  very  pleasant  ones.  To 
one  like  Cicero  Athens  was  at  once  classic  and  holy 
ground.  It  combined  all  those  associations  and  attrac¬ 
tions  which  we  might  now  expect  to  find  in  a  visit  to 
-  the  capitals  of  Greece  and  of  Italy,  and  a  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem.  Poetry,  rhetoric,  philosophy,  religion — all, 
to  his  eyes,  had  their  cradle  there.  It  was  the  home 
of  all  that  was  literature  to  him;  and  there,  too,  were 
the  great  Eleusinian  mysteries— which  are  mysteries 
still,  but  which  contained  under  their  veil  whatever  faith 
in  the  Invisible  and  Eternal  rested  in  the  mind  of  an 
enlightened  pagan.  There  can  be  little  doubt  but 
that  Cicero  took  this  opportunity  of  initiation.  His 
brother  Quintus  and  one  of  his  cousins  were  with  him 
at  Athens;  and  in  that  city  he  also  renewed  his 
acquaintance  with  an  old  schoolfellow,  Titus  Pornpo- 
nius,  who  lived  so  long  in  the  city,  and  became  so 
thoroughly  Athenian  in  his  tastes  and  habits,  that  he 
✓  is  better  known  to  us,  as  he  was  to  his  contemporaries, 
by  the  surname  of  Atticus,  which  was  given  him  half 
in  jest,  than  by  his  more  sonorous  Roman  name.  It 
is  to  the  accidental  circumstance  of  Atticus  remaining 
so  long  a  voluntary  exile  from  Rome,  and  to  the  cor¬ 
respondence  which  was  maintained  between  the  two 
friends,  with  occasional  intervals,  for  something  like 
four-and-twenty  years,  that  we  are  indebted  for  a  more 
thorough  insight  into  the  character  of  Cicero  than  we 
have  as  to  any  other  of  the  great  minds  of  antiquity; 
nearly  four  hundred  of  his  letters  to  Atticus,  written 
in  all  the  familiar  confidence  of  private  friendship  by 


CICERO. 


9 


a  man  by  no  means  reticent  as  to  Lis  personal  feel¬ 
ings,  having  been  preserved  to  us.  Atticus’s  replies  are 
lost;  it  is  said  that  he  was  prudent  enough,  after  his 
friend’s  unhappy  death,  to  reclaim  and  destroy  them. 
They  would  perhaps  have  told  us,  in  his  case,  not  very 
much  that  we  care  to  know  beyond  what  we  know 
already.  Rich,  luxurious,  with  elegant  tastes  and  easy 
morality — a  true  Epicurean,  as  he  boasted  himself  to 
be — Atticus  had  nevertheless  a  kind  heart  and  an 
open  hand.  He  has  generally  been  called  selfish, 
somewhat  unfairly;  at  least  his  selfishness  never  took 
the  form  of  indifference  or  unkindness  to  others.  In 
one  sense  he  was  a  truer  philosopher  than  Cicero:  for 
he  seems  to  have  acted  through  life  on  that  maxim  of 
Socrates  which  his  friend  professed  to  approve,  but 
certainly  never  followed, — that  “a  wise  man  kept  out 
of  public  business.”  His  vocation  was  certainly  not 
patriotism;  but  the  worldly  wisdom  which  kept  well 
with  men  of  all  political  colors,  and  eschewed  t lie 
wretched  intrigues  and  bloody  feuds  of  Rome,  stands 
out  in  no  unfavorable  contrast  with  the  conduct  of 
many  of  her  soidisant  patriots.  If  he  declined  to 
take  a  side  himself,  men  of  all  parties  resorted  to  him 
in  their  adversity;  and  the  man  who  befriended  the 
younger  Marius  in  his  exile,  protected  the  widow  of 
Antony,  gave  shelter  on  his  estates  to  the  victims  of 
the  triumvirate’s  proscription,  and  was  always  ready  to 
offer  his  friend  Cicero  both  his  house  and  his  purse 
whenever  the  political  horizon  clouded  round  him, — 
this  man  was  surely  as  good  a  citizen  as  the  noisiest 
elamorer  for  “  liberty”  in  the  Forum,  or  the  readiest 
hand  with  the  dagger.  He  kept  his  life  and  his  prop¬ 
erty  safe  through  all  those  years  of  peril  and  proscrip¬ 
tion,  with  less  sacrifice  of  principle  than  many  who 


10 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


had  made  louder  professions,  and  died— by  a  singula! 
act  of  voluntary  starvation,  to  make  short  work  with  an 
incurable  disease — at  a  ripe  old  age;  a  godless  Epicu¬ 
rean,  no  doubt,  but  not  the  worst  of  them. 

We  must  return  to  Cicero,  and  deal  somewhat  brief!  v 
with  the  next  few  years  of  his  life,  hie  extended  his 
foreign  tour  for  two  years,  visiting  the  chief  cities  of 
Asia  Minor,  remaining  for  a  short  time  at  Rhodes  to 
take  lessons  once  more  from  his  old  tutor  Molo  the 
rhetorician,  and-  everywhere  availing  himself  of  the 
lectures  of  the  most  renowned  Greek  professors  to 
correct  and  improve  his  own  style  of  composition  and 
delivery.  Soon  after  his  return  to  Rome  he  married. 
Of  the  character  of  his  wife  Terentia  very  different 
views  have  been  taken.  She  appears  to  have  written 
to  him  very  kindly  during  his  long  forced  absences. 
Her  letters  have  not  reached  us;  but  in  all  her  hus¬ 
band’s  replies  she  is  mentioned  in  terms  of  apparently 
the  most  sincere  affection.  He  calls  her  repeatedly  his 
“darling” — “the  delight  of  his  eyes” — “the  best  of 
mothers yet  he  procured  a  divorce  from  her,  for  no 
distinctly  assigned  reason,  after  a  married  life  of  thirty 
years,  during  which  we  find  no  trace  of  any  serious 
domestic  unhappiness.  The  imputations  on  her  honor 
made  by  Plutarch,  and  repeated  by  others,  seem 
utterly  without  foundation ;  and  Cicero’s  own  share 
in  the  transaction  is  not  improved  by  the  fact  of  his 
taking  another  wife  as  soon  as  possible — a  ward  of  his 
own,  an  almost  girl,  with  whom  he  did  not  live  a  year 
before  a  second  divorce  released  him.  Terentia  is  said 
also  to  have  had  an  imperious  temper;  but  the  only 
ground  for  this  assertion  seems  to  have  been  that  she 
quarreled  occasionally  with  her  sister-in-law  Pom- 
ponia,  sister  of  Atticus  and  wife  of  Quintus  Cicero; 


CICERO. 


11 


and  since  Pomponia,  by  her  own  brother’s  account, 
showed  her  temper  very  disagreeably  to  her  hus¬ 
band,  the  feud  between  the  ladies  was  more  likely  to 
have  been  her  fault  than  Terentia’s.  But  the  very 
low  notion  of  the  married  ^relations  entertained  by 
both  the  later  Greeks  and  Romans  helps  to  throw  some 
light  upon  a  proceeding  which  would  otherwise  seem 
very  mysterious.  Terentia,  as  is  pretty  plain  from  the 
hints  in  her  husband’s  letters,  was  not  a  good  manager 
in  money  matters;  there  is  room  for  suspicion  that 
she  was  not  even  an  honest  one  in  his  absehce,  and 
was  “  making  a  purse”  for  herself;  she  had  thus  failed 
in  one  of  the  only  two  qualifications  which,  according 
to  Demosthenes — an  authority  who  ranked  very  high 
in  Cicero’s  eyes — were  essential  in  a  wife,  to  be  “a 
faithful  house-guardian”  and  “  a  fruitful  mother.”  She 
did  not  die  of  a  broken  heart;  she  lived  to  be  104, 
and,  according  to  Dio  Cassius,  to  have  three  more 
husbands.  Divorces  were  easy  enough  at  and 

had  the  lady  been  a  rich  widow  there  might  be 
nothing  so  improbable  in  this  latter  part  of  the  story, 
though  she  was  fifty  years  old  at  the  date  of  this  first 
divorce.* 


CHAPTER  II. 

PUBLIC  CAREER. — IMPEACHMENT  OF  VERRES. 

Increasing  reputation  as  a  brilliant  and  successful 
pleader,  and  the  social  influence  which  this  brought 
with  it,  secured  the  rapid  succession  of  Cicero  to  the 


*  Cato,  who  is  the  favorite  impersonation  of  all  the  mo"al 
virtues  of  his  age,  divorced  his  wife— to  oblige  a  friend  1 


12 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


highest  public  offices.  Soon  after  his  marriage  he  was 
elected  Quaestor — the  first  step  on  the  official  ladder — 
which,  as  he  already  possessed  the  necessary  property 
qualification,  gave  him  a  seat  in  the  Senate  for  life. 
The  iEdileship  and  Praet^rsliip  followed  subsequently, 
each  as  early,  in  point  of  age,  as  it  could  legally  be 
held.* *  His  practice  as  an  advocate  suffered  no  in¬ 
terruption  except  that  his  Quaestorship  involved  his 
spending  a  year  in  Sicily.  The  Praetor  who  was  ap¬ 
pointed  to  the  government  of  that  province*  f  had  under 

. * 

*  The  Quaestors  (of  whom  there  were  at  this  time  twenty) 
acted  under  the  Senate  as  State  treasurers.  The  Consul  or 
other  officer  who  commanded  in  chief  during  a  campaign  would 
be  accompanied  by  one  of  them  as  paymaster-general. 

The  iEdiles,  who  were  four  in  number,  had  the  care  of  all  pub¬ 
lic  buildings,  markets,  roads,  and  the  State  property  generally. 
They  had  also  the  superintendence  of  the  national  festivals  and 
public  games. 

The  duties  of  the  Praetors,  of  whom  there  were  eight,  were 
principally  judicial.  The  two  seniors,  called  the  “City”  and 
“  Foreign”  respectively,  corresponded  roughly  to  our  Home  and 
Foreign*  Secretaries.  These  were  all  gradual  steps  to  the  office 
of  Consul. 

+  The  provinces  of  Rome,  in  their  relation  to  the  mother-state 
of  Italy,  may  be  best  compared  with  our  own  government  of 
India,  or  such  of  our  crown  colonies  as  have  no  representative 
assembly.  They  had  each  their  governor  or  lieutenant-gov¬ 
ernor,  who  must  have  been  an  ex-minister  of  Rome:  a  man  who 
had  been  Consul  went  out  with  the  rank  of  “pro-consul,” 
—one  who  had  been  Praetor,  with  the  rank  of  “  pro-prsetor.” 
These  held  office  for  one  or  two  years,  and  had  the  power  of 
life  and  death  within  their  respective  jurisdictions.  They  had 
under  them  one  or  more  officers  who  bore  the  title  of  Quaestor, 
who  collected  the  taxes  and  had  the  general  management  of 
the  revenues  of  the  province.  The  provinces  at  this  time  were 
Sicily,  Sardinia  with  Corsica,  Spain  and  Gaul  (each  in  two  divi¬ 
sions);  Greece,  divided  into  Macedonia  and  Achaia  (the  Morea); 
Asia,  Syria,  Cilicia,  Bithynia,  Cyprus,  and  Africa  in  four  divi¬ 
sions,  Others  were  added  afterwards,  under  the  Empire, 


t 


CICERO. 


13 


him  two  qusestors,  who  were  a  kind  of  comptrollers 
of  the  exchequer;  and  Cicero  was  appointed  to  the 
western  district,  having  his  headquarters  at  Lilybseum. 
In  the  administration  of  his  office  there  he  showed  him¬ 
self  a  thorough  man  of  business.  There  was  a  dearth 
of  corn  at  Rome  that  year,  and  Sicily  was  the  great 
granary  of  the  empire.  The  energetic  measures  which 
the  new  Quaestor  took  fully  met  the  emergency.  He 
was  liberal  to  the  tenants  of  the  State,  courteous  and 
accessible  to  all,  upright  in  his  administration,  and, 
above  all,  he  kept  his  hands  clean  from  bribes  and  pecu¬ 
lation.  The  provincials  were  as  much  astonished  as 
delighted :  for  Rome  was  not  in  the  habit  of  sending 
them  such  officers.  They  invented  honors  for  him 
such  as  had  never  been  bestowed  on  any  minister  be¬ 
fore.  No  wonder  the  }roung  official’s  head  (he  was 
not  much  over  thirty)  was  somewhat  turned.  “  I 
thought,”  he  said,  in  one  of  his  speeches  afterwards — 
introducing  with  a  quiet  humor,  and  with  all  a  practiced 
orator’s  skill,  one  of  those  personal  anecdotes  which  re¬ 
lieve  a  long  speech — “I  thought  in  my  heart,  at  the 
time,  that  the  people  at  Rome  must  be  talking  of  noth¬ 
ing  but  my  quaestorship.”  And  he  goes  on  to  tell  his 
audience  how  he  was  undeceived. 

“The  people  of  Sicily  had  devised  for  me  unpre¬ 
cedented  honors.  So  I  left  the  island  in  a  state  of  great 
elation,  thinking  that  the  Roman  people  would  at  once 
offer  me  everything  without  my  seeking.  But  when  I 
was  leaving  my  province,  and  on  my  road  home,  I 
happened  to  land  at  Puteoli  just  at  the  timewhema 
good  many  of  our  most  fashionable  people  are  ac¬ 
customed  to  resort  to  that  neighborhood.  I  very  nearly 
collapsed,  gentlemen,  when  a  man  asked  me  what  day 
I  had  left  Rome,  and  whether  there  was  any  news  stir- 


14 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


ring?  When  I  made  answer  that  I  was  returning  from 
my  province — ‘Oh!  yes,  to  be  sure,’ said  he;  ‘Africa, 
I  believe?’  ‘No,’  said  I  to  him,  considerably  annoyed 
and  disgusted;  ‘from  Sicily.’  Then  somebody  else, 
with  the  air  of  a  man  who  knew  all  about  it,  said  to 
him — ‘What!  don’t  you  know  that  he  was  Quaestor  at 
Syracuse?  ’  [It  was  at  Lilybseum — quite  a  different  dis¬ 
trict.]  No  need  to  make  a  long  story  of  it;  I  swallowed 
my  indignation,  and  made  as  though  I,  like  the  rest, 
had  come  there  for  the  waters.  But  I  am  not  sure, 
gentlemen,  whether  that  scene  did  not  do  me  more  good 
than  if  everybody  then  and  there  had  publicly  con¬ 
gratulated  me.  For  after  I  had  thus  found  out  that  the 
people  of  Rome  have  somewhat  deaf  ears,  but  very  keen 
and  sharp  eyes,  I  left  off  cogitating  what  people  would 
hear  about  me;  I  took  care  that  thenceforth  they  should 
see  me  before  them  every  day:  I  lived  in  their  sight,  I 
stuck  close  to  the  Forum;  the  porter  at  my  gate  refused 
no  man  admittance — my  very  sleep  was  never  allowed 
to  be  a  plea  against  an  audience.”  * 

Did  we  not  say  that  Cicero  was  modern,  not  ancient? 
Have  we  not  here  the  original  of  that  Cambridge  senior 
wrangler  who,  happening  to  enter  a  London  theatre  at 
the  same  moment  with  the  king,  bowed  all  round  with 
a  gratified  embarrassment,  thinking  that  the  audience 
rose  and  cheered  at  Mm  ? 

It  was  while  he  held  the  office  of  iEdile  that  he  made 
his  first  appearance  as  public  prosecutor,  and  brought 
to  justice  the  most  important  criminal  of  the  day. 
Yerres,  late  Praetor  in  Sicily,  wras  charged  with  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors  in  his  government.  The 
grand  scale  of  his  offenses,  and  the  absorbing  interest 


*  Defence  of  Plancius,  c.  26,  27. 


CICERO. 


15 


of  the  trial,  have  led  to  his  ease  being  quoted  as  an 
obvious  parallel  to  that  of  Warren  Hastings,  though 
with  much  injustice  to  the  latter,  so  far  as  it  may  seem 
to  imply  any  comparison  of  moral  character.  This 
Verres,  the  corrupt  son  of  a  corrupt  father,  had  during 
his  three  years’  rule  heaped  on  the  unhappy  province 
every  evil  which  tyranny  and  rapacity  could  inflict. 
He  had  found  it  prosperous  and  contented:  he  left 
it  exhausted  and  smarting  under  its  wrongs.  He  met 
his  impeachment  now7  with  considerable  confidence-. 
The  gains  of  his  first  year  of  office  wTere  sufficient,  he 
said,  for  liimself;  the  second  had  been  for  his  friends; 
the  third  produced  more  than  enough  to  bribe  a  jury. 

The  trials  at  Rome  took  place  in  the  Forum — I  he 
open  space,  of  nearly  five  acres,  lying  between  the 
Capitoline  and  Palatine  hills.  It  wns  the  city  mar¬ 
ket-place,  but  it  was  also  the  place  where  the  popula¬ 
tion  assembled  for  an}7  public  meeting,  political 
or  other — where  the  idle  citizen  strolled  to  meet 
his  friends  and  hear  the  gossip  of  the  day,  and 
where  the  man  of  business  made  his  appointments. 
Courts  for  the  administration  of  justice — magnificent 
halls,  called  basilica — had  by  this  time  been  erected 
on  the  north  and  south  sides,  and  in  these  the  ordinary 
trials  took  place;  but  for  state  trials  the  open  Forum 
was  itself  the  court.  One  end  of  the  wide  area  was 
raised  on  a  somewhat  higher  level — a  kind  of  dais 
on  a  large  scale — and  was  separated  from  the  rest  by 
the  Rostra,  a  sort  of  stage  from  which  the  orators 
spoke.  It  was  here  that  the  trials  were  held.  A 
temporary  tribunal  for  the  presiding  officer,  with  ac¬ 
commodation  for  counsel,  witnesses,  and  jury,  was 
erected  in  the  open  air;  and  the  scene  may  perhaps 
best  be  pictured  by  imagining  the  principal  square 


16 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


in  some  large  town  fitted  up  with  open  hustings  on  a 
large  scale  for  an  old-fashioned  county  election,  by  no 
means  omitting  the  intense  popular  excitement  and 
mob  violence  appropriate  to  such  occasions.  Temples 
of  the  gods  and  other  public  buildings  overlooked  the 
area,  and  the  steps  of  these,  on  any  occasion  of  great 
excitement,  would  be  crowded  by  those  who  were 
anxious  to  see,  at  least,  if  they  could  not  hear. 

Verres,  as  a  state  criminal,  would  be  tried  before  a 
special  commission,  and  by  a  jury  composed  at  this 
time  entirely  from  the  senatorial  order,  chosen  by  lot 
(with  a  limited  right  of  challenge  reserved  to  both 
parties)  from  a  panel  made  out  eveiy  year  by  the  praetor. 
This  magistrate,  who  was  a  kind  of  minister  of  justice, 
usually  presided  on  such  occasions,  occupying  the  curule 
chair,  which  was  one  of  the  well-known  privileges  of 
high  office  at  Rome.  But  his  office  was  rather  that  of 
the  modern  chairman  who  keeps  order  at  a  public 
meeting  than  that  of  a  judge.  Judge,  in  our  sense  of 
the  word,  there  was  none;  the  jury  were  the  judges 
both  of  law  and  fact.  They  were,  in  short,  the  recog- 
ized  assessors  of  the  praetor,  in  whose  hands  the 
administration  of  justice  was  supposed  to  lie.  The 
law,  too,  was  of  a  highly  flexible  character,  and  the 
appeals  of  the  advocates  were  rather  to  the  passions 
aud  feelings  of  the  jurors  than  to  the  legal  points  of 
the  case.  Cicero  himself  attached  comparatively  little 
weight  to  this  branch  of  his  profession — “Busy  as 
I  am,”  he  says  in  one  of  his  speeches,  “I  could  make 
myself  lawyer  enough  in  three  days.”  The  jurors  gave 
each  their  vote  by  ballot, — “guilty,”  “not  guilty,”  or  (as 
in  the  Scotch  courts)  “not  proven,” — and  the  majority 
carried  the  verdict. 

But  such  trials  as  that  of  Verres  were  much  more 
*  # 


CICERO. 


•  17 

like  an  impeachment  before  the  House  of  Commons 
than  a  calm  judicial  inquiry.  The  men  who  would 
have  to  try  a  defendant  of  his  class  would  be,  in  very 
few  cases,  honest  and  impartial  weighers  of  the  evi¬ 
dence.  Their  large  number  (varying  from  fifty  to 
seventy)  weakened  the  sense  of  individual  responsibi¬ 
lity,  and  laid  them  more  open  to  the  appeal  of  the 
advocates  to  their  political  passions.  Most  of  them 
would  come  into  court  prejudiced  in  some  degree  by 
the  interests  of  party;  many  would  be  hot  partisans. 
Cicero,  in  his  treatise  on  “Oratory,”  explains  clearly 
for  the  pleader’s  guidance  the  nature  of  the  tribunals 
to  which  he  had  to  appeal.  “Men  are  influenced  in 
their  verdicts  much  more  by  prejudice  or  favor,  or 
greed  of  gain,  or  anger,  or  indignation,  or  pleasure,  or 
hope  or  fear,  or  by  misapprehension,  or  by  some  excite¬ 
ment  of  [their  feelings,  than  either  by  the  facts  of  the 
case,  or  by  established  precedents,  or  by  any  rules  or 
principles  whatever  either  of  law  or  equity.” 

Verres  was  supported  by  some  of  the  most  powerful 
families  at  Rome.  Peculation  on  the  part  of  governors 
of  provinces  had  become  almost  a  recognized  principle: 
many  of  those  who  held  offices  of  state  either  had  done, 
or  were  waiting  their  turn  to  do,  much  the  same  as  the 
present  defendant  ;  and  every  effort  had  been  made  by 
his  friends  either  to  put  off  the  trial  indefinitely,  or  to 
turn  it  into  a_sham  by  procuring  the  appointment  of  a 
private  friend  and  creature  of  his  own  as  public  prosecu¬ 
tor.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Sicilian  families  whom  he 
had  wronged  and  outraged,  had  their  share  of  influence 
also  at  Rome,  and  there  was  a  growing  impatience  of  the 
insolence  and  rapacity  of  the  old  governing  houses, 
of  whose  worst  qualities  the  ex  governor  of  Sicily  was 
a  fair  type.  There  were  many  reasons  which  would 


18  '  THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 

lead  Cicero  to  take  up  such  a  cause  energetically.  Tt 
was  a  great  opening  for  him  in  what  we  may  call  his 
profession:  his  former  connection  with  the  government 
of  Sicily  gave  him  a  personal  interest  in  the  cause  of 
the  province;  and,  above  all,  the  prosecution  of  a  state 
offender  of  such  importance  was  a  lift  at  once  into  the 
foremost  ranks  of  political  life.  He  spared  no  pains  to 
get  up  his  case  thoroughly  He  went  all  over  the 
island  collecting  evidence;  and  his  old  popularity  there 
did  him  good  service  in  the  work. 

There  was,  indeed,  evidence  enough  against  the  late 
governor.  The  reckless  gratification  of  his  avarice  and 
his  passions  had  seldom  satisfied  him,  without  the  addi¬ 
tion  of  some  bitter  insult  to  the  sufferers.  But  there 
was  even  a  more  atrocious  feature  in  the  case,  of  which 
Cicero  did  not  fail  to  make  good  use  in  his  appeal  to 
a  Roman  jury.  Many  of  the  unhappy  victims  had 
the  Roman  franchise.  The  torture  of  an  unfortunate 
Sicilian  might  be  turned  into  a  jest  by  a  clever  advo^ 
cate  for  the  defence,  and  regarded  by  a  philosophic 
jury  with  less  than  the  cold  compassion  with  which  we 
regard  the  sufferings  of  the  lower  animals;  hut  “to 
scourge  a  man  that  was  a  Roman  and  uncondemned,” 
even  in  the  far  off  province  of  Judea,  was  a  thought 
which,  a  century  later,  made  the  officers  of  the  great 
Empire,  at  its  pitch  of  power,  tremble  before  a  wan¬ 
dering  teacher  who  bore  the  despised  name  of  Chris, 
tian.  No  one  can  possibly  tell  the  tale  so  well  as 
Cicero  himself;  and  the  passage  from  his  speech  for 
the  prosecution  is  an  admirable  specimen  both  of  his 
power  of  pathetic  narrative  and  scathing  denunciation. 

“How  shall  I  speak  of  Publius  Gavius,  a  citizen  of 
Consa?  With  what  powers  of  voice,  with  what  force  of 
language,  with  what  sufficient  indignation  of  soul,  can 


CICERO. 


19 


I  tell  the  tale?  Indignation,  at  least,  will  not  fail  me: 
the  more  must  I  strive  that  in  this  my  pleading  the 
other  requisites  may  be  made  to  meet  the  gravity  of  the 
subject,  the  intensity  of  my  feeling.  For  the  accusa¬ 
tion  is  such  that,  when  it  was  first  laid  before  me,  I  did 
not  think  to  make  use  of  it;  though  I  knew  it  to  be  per¬ 
fectly  true,  I  did  not  think  it  would  be  credible. — How 
Shall  I  now  proceed? — when  I  have  already  been  speak¬ 
ing  for  so  many  hours  on  one  subject — his  atrocious 
cruelty;  when  I  have  exhausted  upon  other  points  well- 
nigh  all  the  powers  of  language  such  as  alone  is  suited 
to  that  man’s  crimes; — when  I  have  taken  no  precaution 
to  secure  your  attention  by  any  variety  in  my  charges 
against  him, — in  what  fashion  can  I  now  speak  on  a 
Charge  of  this  importance?  I  think  there  is  one  way — 
one  course,  and  only  one,  left  for  me  to  take.  I  will 
place  the  facts  before  you;  and  they  have  in  themselves 
such  weight,  that  no  eloquence — I  will  not  say  of  mine, 
for  I  have  none — but  of  any  man’s,  is  needed  to  excite 
your  feelings. 

*  ‘  This  Gavius  of  Consa,  of  whom  I  speak,  had  been 
among  the  crowds  of  Roman  citizens  who  had  been 
thrown  into  prison  under  that  man.  Somehow  he  had 
made  his  escape  out  of  the  Quarries,*  and  had  got  to 
Messana;  and  when  lie  saw  Italy  and  the  towers  of 

*  This  was  one  of  the  state  prisons  at  Syracuse,  so  called,  said 
to  have  been  constructed  by  the  tyrant  Dionysius.  They  were 
the  quarries  from  which  the  stone  was  dug  for  building  the  city, 
and  had  been  converted  to  their  present  purpose.  Cicero,  who 
no  doubt  had  seen  the  one  in  question,  describes  it  as  sunk  to  an 
immense  depth  in  the  solid  rock.  There  was  no  roof ;  and  the 
unhappy  prisoners  were  exposed  there  “  to  the  sun  by  day,  and 
to  the  rain  and  frosts  by  night.”  In  these  places  the  survivors 
of  the  unfortunate  Athenian  expedition  against  Syracuse  were 
confined,  and  died  in  great  numbers. 


20 


TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY . 


Rhegium  now  so  close  to  him,  and  out  of  the  horror 
and  shadow  of  death  felt  himself  breathe  with  a  new 
life  as  he  scented  once  more  the  fresh  air  of  liberty  and 
the  laws,  he  began  to  talk  at  Messana,  and  to  complain 
that  be,  a  Roman  citizen,  had  been  put  in  irons — that 
he  was  going  straight  to  Rome — that  he  would  be  ready 
there  for  Verres  on  his  arrival. 

“  The  wretched  man  little  knew  that  he  might  as  well 
have  talked  in  this  fashion  in  the  governor’s  palace  before 
his  very  face,  as  at  Messana.  For,  as  I  told  you  before, 
this  city  he  had  selected  for  himself  as  the  accomplice 
in  his  crimes,  the  receiver  of  his  stolen  goods,  the  con¬ 
fidant  of  all  his  wickedness.  So  Gavius  is  brought  at 
once  before  the  city  magistrates;  and,  as  it  so  chanced, 
on  that  very  day  Verres  himself  came  to  Messana.  The 
case  is  reported  to  him;  that,  there  is  a  certain  Roman 
citizen  who  complained  of  having  been  put  into  the 
Quarries  at  Syracuse;  that  as  he  was  just  going  on  board 
ship,  and  was  uttering  threats — really  too  atrocious— 
against  Verres,  they  had  detained  him,  and  kept  him  in 
custody,  that  the  governor  himself  might  decide  about 
him  as  should  seem  to  Hiim  good.  Verres  thanks  the 
gentlemen,  and  extols  their  goodwill  and  zeal  for  his 
interests.  He  himself,  burning  with  rage  and  malice, 
comes  down  to  the  court.  His  eyes  flashed  fire;  cruelty 
was  written  on  every  line  of  his  face.  All  present 
watched  anxiously  to  see  to  what  lengths  he  meant  to  go, 
or  what  steps  he  would  take;  when  suddenly  he  ordered 
the  prisoner  to  be  dragged  forth,  and  to  be  stripped  and 
bound  in  the  open  forum,  and  the  rods  to  be  got  ready 
at  once.  The  unhappy  man  cried  out  that  he  was  a 
Roman  citizen — that  lie.had  the  municipal  franchise  of 
Consa — that  he  had  served  in  a  campaign  with  Lucius 
Pretius,  a  distinguished  Roman  knight,  now  engaged  in 


CICERO . 


21 


business  at  Panormus,  from  whom  Verres  might  ascer¬ 
tain  the  truth  of  his  statement.  Then  that  man  replies 
that  he  has  discovered  that  he,  Gavius,  has  been  sent 
into  Sicily  as  a  spy  by  the  ringleaders  of  the  runaway 
slaves;  of  which  charge  there  was  neither  witness  nor 
trace  of  any  kind,  or  even  suspicion  in  any  man’s  mind. 
Then  he  ordered  the  man  to  be  scourged  severely  all 
over  his  body.  Yes — a  Roman  citizen  was  cut  to  pieces 
with  rods  in  the  open  forum  at  Messana,  gentlemen; 
and  as  the  punishment  went  on,  no  word,  no  groan  of 
the  wretched  man,  in  all  his  anguish,  was  heard  amid 
the  sound  of  the  lashes,  but  this  cry, — ‘  I  am  a  Roman 
citizen!’  By  such  protest  of  citizenship  he  thought  he 
could  at  least  save  himself  from  anytliiug  like  blows — 
could  escape  the  indignity  of  personal  torture.  But  not 
only  did  he  fail  in  thus  deprecating  the  insult  of  the 
lash,  but  when  he  redoubled  his  entreaties  and  his 
appeal  to  the  name  of  Rome,  a  cross — yes,  I  say,  a  cross 
— was  ordered  for  that  most  unfortunate  and  ill-fated 
man,  w7ho  had  never  yet  beheld  such  an  abuse  of  a  gover¬ 
nor’s  power. 

“O  name  of  liberty,  sweet  to  our  ears!  O  rights  of 
citizenship,  in  which  we  glory!  O  lawrs  of  Porcius  and 
Sempronius!  O  privilege  of  the  tribune,  long  and  sorely 
regretted,  and  at  last  restored  to  the  people  of  Rome! 
Has  it  all  come  to  this,  that  a  Roman  citizen  in  a  province 
of  the  Roman  people — in  a  federal  town — is  to  be  bound 
and  beaten  with  rods  in  the  forum  by  a  man  who  only 
holds  those  rods  and  axes — those  awful  emblems — by 
grace  of  that  same  people  of  Rome?  What  shall  I  say 
of  the  fact  that  fire,  and  red-hot  plates,  and  other  tor¬ 
tures  were  applied?  Even  if  his  agonized  entreaties  and 
pitiable  cries  did  not  check  you,  were  you  not  moved  by 
the  tears  and  groans  which  burst  from  the  Roman 


22 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


citizens  who  were  present  at  the  scene?  Did  you  dare 
to  drag  to  the  cross  any  man  who  claimed  to  be  a  citizen 
of  Rome? — I  did  not  intend,  gentlemen,  in  my  former 
pleading,  to  press  this  case  so  strongly — I  did  not  in¬ 
deed;  for  you  saw  yourselves  how  the  public  feeling 
was  already  imbittered  against  the  defendant  by  indig¬ 
nation,  and  hate,  and  dread  of  a  common  peril. 

He  then  proceeds  to  prove  by  witnesses  the  facts  of 
the  case  and  the  falsehood  of  the  charge  against  Gavius 
of  having  been  a  spy.  “  However,”  he  goes  on  to  say, 
addressing  himself  now  to  Verres,  “we  will  grant,  if 
you  please,  that  your  suspicions  on  this  point,  if  false, 
were  honestly  entertained. 

“You  did  not  know  who  the  man  was;  you  sus¬ 
pected  him  of  being  a  spy.  I  do  not  ask  the 
grounds  of  your  suspicion.  I  impeach  you  on  your 
own  evidence.  He  said  he  was  a  Roman  citizen. 
Had  you  yourself,  Verres,  been  seized  and  led  out  to 
execution,  in  Persia,  say,  or  in  the  farthest  Indies, 
what  other  cry  or  protest  could  you  raise  but  that  you 
were  a  Roman  citizen?  And  if  you,  a  stranger  there 
among  strangers,  in  the  hands  of  barbarians,  among 
men  who  dwell  in  the  farthest  and  remotest  regions  of 
the  earth,  would  have  found  protection  in  the  name  of 
your  city,  known  and  renowned  in  every  nation  under 
heaven,  could  the  victim  whom  you  were  dragging  to 
the  cross,  be  he  who  he  might — and  you  did  not  know 
who  he  was — when  he  declared  he  was  a  citizen  of 
Rome,  could  he  obtain  from  yon,  a  Roman  magistrate, 
by  the  mere  mention  and  claim  of  citizenship,  not  only 
no  reprieve,  but  not  even  a  brief  respite  from  death? 

“Men  of  neither  rank  nor  wealth,  of  humble  birth 
and  station,  sail  the  seas;  they  touch  at  some  spot  they 
never  saw  before,  where  they  are  neither  personally 


CICERO. 


known  to  those  whom  they  visit,  nor  can  always  find 
any  to  vouch  for  their  nationality.  But  in  this  single 
fact  of  their  citizenship  they  feel  they  shall  be  safe,  not 
only  with  our  own  governors,  who  are  held  in  check  by 
the  terror  of  the  laws  and  of  public  opinion — not  only 
among  those  who  share  that  citizenship  of  Rome,  and 
who  are  united  with  them  by  community  of  lan¬ 
guage,  of  laws,  and  of  many  things  besides — but  go 
where  they  may,  this,  they  think,  will  be  their  safe¬ 
guard.  Take  away  this  confidence,  destroy  this  safe¬ 
guard  for  our  Roman  citizens — once  establish  the  prin¬ 
ciple  that  there  is  no  protection  in  the  words,  “I  am  a 
citizen  of  Rome” — that  praetor  or  other  magistrate  may 
with  impunity  sentence  to  what  punishment  he  will  a 
man  who  says  he  is  a  Roman  citizen,  merely  because 
somebody  does  not  know  it  fora  fact;  and  at  once,  by 
admitting  such  a  defense,  you  are  shutting  up  against 
our  Roman  citizens  all  our  provinces,  all  foreign  states, 
despotic  or  independent — all  the  whole  world,  in  short, 
which  has  ever  lain  open  to  our  national  enterprise 
beyond  all.” 

He  turns  again  to  Verres. 

“But  why  talk  of  Gavius?  as.  though  it  were 
Gavius  on  whom  you  were  wreaking  a  private  ven¬ 
geance  instead  of  rather  raging  war  against  the  very 
name  and  rights  of  Roman  citizenship.  You  showed 
yourself  an  enemy,  I  say,  not  to  the  individual  man, 
but  to  the  common  cause  of  liberty.  For  what  meant 
it  that,  when  the  authorities  of  Messana,  according  to 
their  usual  custom,  would  have  erected  the  cross  behind 
their  city  on  the  Pompeian  road,  you  ordered  it  to  be 
set  up  on  the  side  that  looked  toward  the  Strait?  Nay, 
and  added  this — which  you  cannot  deny,  which  you 
said  openly  in  the  hearing  of  all— that  you  chose  that 


M 


TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


spot  for  this  reason,  that  as  he  had  called  himself  a 
Roman  citizen,  he  might  be  able,  from  his  cross  of  pun¬ 
ishment,  to  see  in  the  distance  his  country  and  his 
home!  And  so,  gentlemen,  that  cross  was  the  only  one, 
since  Messana  was  a  city,  that  was  ever  erected  on  that 
spot;  A  point  which  commanded  a  view  of  Italy  was 
chosen  by  the  defendant  for  the  express  reason  that  the 
dying  sufferer,  in  his  last  agony  and  torment,  might  see 
how  the  rights  of  the  slave  and  the  freeman  were  separ¬ 
ated  by  that  narrow  streak  of  sea;  that  Italy  might  look 
upon  a  son  of  hers  suffering  the  capital  penalty  reserved 
for  slaves  alone. 

“It  is  a  crime  to  put  a  citizen  of  Rome  in  bonds; 
it  is  an  atrocity  to  scourge  him;  to  put  him  to  death 
is  well-nigh  parricide;  what  shall  I  say  it  is  to  crucify 
him? — Language  has  no  word  by  which  I  may  designate 
such  an  enormity.  Yet  with  all  this  yon  man  was  not 
content.  ‘Let  him  look,’  said  he,  ‘towards  his 
country;  let  him  die  in  full  sight  of  freedom  and  the 
laws.’  It  was  not  Gavius;  it  was  not  a  single  victim 
unknown  to  fame,  a  mere  individual  Roman  citizen;  it 
was  the  common  cause  of  liberty,  the  common  rights  of 
citizenship,  which  you  there  outraged  and  put  to  a 
shameful  death.” 

But  in  order  to  judge  of  the  thrilling  effect  of  such 
passages  upon  a  Roman  jury,  they  must  be  read  in  the 
grand  periods  of  the  oration  itself ;  to  which  no  trans¬ 
lation  into  a  language  so  different  in  idiom  and  rhythm 
as  English  is  from  Latin  can  possibly  do  justice.  The 
fruitless  appeal  made  by  the  unhapp}r  citizen  to  the  out¬ 
raged  majesty  of  Rome,  and  the  indignant  demand  for 
vengeance,  which  the  great  orator  founds  upon  it — pro¬ 
claiming  the  recognized  principle  that,  in  every  quarter 
of  the  world,  the  humblest  wanderer  who  could  say  he 


CICERO. 


25 


was  a  Roman  citizen  should  find  protection  in  the  name 
— will  be-  always  remembered  as  having  supplied  Lord 
Palmerston  with  one  of  his  most  telling  illustrations. 
But  this  great  speech  of  Cicero’s — perhaps  the  most 
magnificent  piece  of  declamation  in  any  language — 
though  written  and  preserved  to  us,  was  never  spoken. 
The  whole  of  the  pleadings  in  the  case,  which  extend  to 
some  length,  were  composed  for  the  occasion,  no  doubt, 
in  substance,  and  we  have  to  thank  Cicero  for  publish¬ 
ing  them  afterwards  in  full.  But  Verres  only  waited  to 
hear  the  brief  opening  speech  of  his  prosecutor;  he  did 
not  dare  to  challenge  a  verdict,  but  allowing  judgment 
to  go  by  default,  withdrew  to  Marseilles  soon  after  the 
trial  opened.  He  lived  there,  undisturbed  in  the  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  his  plunder,  long  enough  to  see  the  fall  and 
assassination  of  his  great  accuser,  but  only  (as  it  is  said) 
to  share  his  fate  soon  afterwards  as  one  of  the  victims 
of  Antony’s  proscription.  Of  his  guilt  there  can  be  no 
question;  his  fear  to  face  a  court  in  which  he  had  many 
friends  is  sufficient  presumptive  evidence  of  it;  but  we 
must  hesitate  in  assuming  the  deepness  of  its  dye  from 
the  terrible  invectives  of  Cicero.  No  sensible  person 
will  form  an  opinion  upon  the  real  merits  of  a  case, 
even  in  an  English  court  of  justice  now,  entirely  from 
the  speech  of  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution.  And  if  we 
were  to  go  back  a  century  or  two,  to  the  state  trials  of 
those  days,  we  know  that  to  form  our  estimate  of  a 
prisoner’s  guilt  from  such  data  only  would  be  doing  him 
a  gross  injustice.  We  have  only  to  remember  the  excla¬ 
mation  of  Warren  Hastings  himself,  whose  trial,  as  has 
been  said,  has  so  many  points  of  resemblance  with  that 
of  Verres,  when  Burke  sat  down  after  the  torrent  of 
eloquence  which  he  had  hurled  against  the  accused  in 
his  opening  speech  for  the  prosecution:  “I  thought 


26 


THE  ELZEVIR  LI REAR Y. 


myself  for  the  moment,”  said  Hastings,  “  the  guiltiest 
man  in  England.” 

The  result  of  this  trial  was  to  raise  Cicero  at  once  to 
the  leadership — if  so  modem  an  expression  may  be  used 
— of  the  Roman  bar.  Up  to  this  time  the  position  had 
been  held  by  Hortensius,  the  counsel  for  Verres,  whom 
Cicero  himself  calls  “  the  king  of  the  courts.”  He  was 
eight  years  the  senior  of  Cicero  in  age,  and  many  more 
professionally,  for  lie  is  said  to  have  made  his  first  pub¬ 
lic  speech  at  nineteen.  He  had  the  advantage  of  the 
most  extraordinary  memory,  a  musical  voice,  and  a  rich 
flow  of  language:  but  Cicero  more  than  implies  that  he 
was  not  above  bribing  a  jury.  It  was  not  more  dis¬ 
graceful  in  those  days  than  bribing  a  voter  in  our  own. 
The  two  men  were  very  unlike  in  one  respect;  Horten¬ 
sius  was  a  fop  and  an  exquisite  (he  is  said  to  have 
brought  an  action  against  a  colleague  for  disarranging 
the  folds  of  his  gown),  while  Cicero’s  vanity  was  quite 
of  another  kind.  After  Verres’s  trial,  the  two  advo¬ 
cates  were  frequently  engaged  together  in  the  same 
cause  and  on  the  same  side:  but  Hortensius  seems 
quietly  to  have  abdicated  his  forensic  sovereignty  before 
the  rising  fame  of  his  younger  rival.  They  became, 
ostensibly  at  least,  personal  friends.  What  jealousy 
there  was  between  them,  strange  to  say,  seems  always 
to  have  been  on  the  side  of  Cicero,  who  could  not  be 
convinced  of  the  friendly  feeling  which,  on  Hortensius’s 
part,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt.  After  his  rival's 
death,  however,  Cicero  did  full  justice  to  his  merits  and 
his  eloquence,  and  even  inscribed  to  his  memory  a 
treatise  on  “Glory”  which  has  been  lost. 


CICERO. 


27 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  CONSULSHIP  AND  CATILINE. 

There  was  ho  check  as  yet  in  Cicero’s  career.  It 
had  been  a  steady  course  of  fame  and  success,  honestly 
earned  and  well  deserved;  and  it  was  soon  to  culmin¬ 
ate  in  that  great  civil  triumph  which  earned  for  him  the 
proud  title  of  Pater  Patrice — the  Father  of  his  Country. 

It  was  a  phrase  which  the  orator  himself  had  invented; 
and  it  is  possible  that,  with  all  his  natural  self-compla-  * 
cency,  he  might  have  felt  a  little  uncomfortable  under 
the  compliment,  when  he  remembered  on  whom  he  had 
originally  bestowed  it — upon  that  Caius  Marius,  whose 
death  in  his  bed  at  a  good  old  age,  after  being  seven 
times  consul,  he  afterwards  uses  as  an  argument,  in 
the  mouth  of  one  of  his  imaginary  disputants,  against 
the  existence  of  an  overruling  Providence.  In  the  prime 
of  his  manhood  he  reached  the  great  object  of  a  Roman’s 
ambition — he  became  virtually  Prime  Minister  of  the 
republic :  for  he  was  elected,  by  acclamation  rather  than 
by  vote,  the  first  of  the  two  consuls  for  the  year,  and 
his  colleague,  Caius  Antonius  (who  had  beaten  the  third 
candidate,  the  notorious  Catiline,  by  a  few  votes  only) 
was  a  man  who  valued  his  office  chiefly  for  its  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  peculation,  and  whom  Cicero  knew  how  to 
manage.  It  is  true  that  this  high  dignity — so  jealous 
were  the  old  republican  principles  of  individual  power 
— would  last  only  for  a  year;  but  that  year  was  to  be  a 
most  eventful  one,  both  for  Cicero  and  for  Rome.  The 
terrible  days  of  Marius  and  Sylla  had  passed,  only  to 
leave  behind  a  taste  for  blood  and  licence  among  the 
corrupt  aristocracy  and  turbulent  commons.  There 
were  men  among  the  younger  nobles  quite  rea^y  to  risk 


28 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


their  lives  in  the  struggle  for  absolute  power;  and  the 
mob  was  ready  to  follow  whatever  leader  was  bold 
enough  to  bid  highest  for  their  support. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  do  much  more  than  glance  at 
the  well-known  story  of  Catiline’s  conspiracy.  It  was 
the  attempt  of  an  able  and  desperate  man  to  make  him¬ 
self  and  his  partisans  masters  of  Rome  by  a  bloody  re¬ 
volution.  Catiline  was  a  member  of  a  noble  but  im¬ 
poverished  family,  who  had  borne  arms  under  Sylla, 
and  had  served  an  early  apprenticeship  in  bloodshed 
under  that  unscrupulous  leader.  Cicero  has  described 
his  character  in  terms  which  probably  are  not  unfair, 
because  the  portrait  was  drawn  by  him,  in  the  course  of 
his  defence  of  a  young  friend  who  had  been  too  much 
connected  with  Catiline,  for  the  distinct  purpose  of 
showing  the  popular  qualities  which  had  dazzled  and 
attracted  so  many  of  the  youth  of  Rome. 

“He  had  about  him  very  many  of,  I  can  hardly  say 
the  visible  tokens,  but  the  adumbrations  of  the  highest 
qualities.  There  was  in.  his  character  that  which 
tempted  him  to  indulge  the  worst  passions,  but  also  that 
which  spurred  him  to  energy  and  hard  work.  Licen¬ 
tious  appetites  burnt  fiercely  within  him,  but  there  was 
also  a  strong  love  of  active  military  service.  I  believe 
that  there  never  lived  on  earth  such  a  monster  of 
inconsistency — such  a  compound  of  opposite  tastes  and 
passions  brought  into  conflict  with  each  other.  Who 
at  one  time  was  a  greater  favorite  with  our  most  illus¬ 
trious  men?  Who  was  a  closer  intimate  with  our  very 
basest?  Who  could  be  more  greedy  of  money  than  he 
was?  Who  could  lavish  it  more  profusely?  There 
were  these  marvellous  qualities  in  the  man — he  made 
friends  so  universally,  he  retained  them  by  his  obliging 
ways,  he  was  ready  to  share  what  he  had  with  them  all, 


CICERO . 


29 


to  lielp  them  at  their  need  with  his  money,  his  influence, 
his  personal  exertions — not  stopping  short  of  the  most 
audacious  crime,  if  there  was  need  of  it.  He  could 
change  his  very  nature,  and  rule  himself  by  circum¬ 
stances,  and  turn  and  bend  in  any  direction.  He  lived 
soberly  with  the  serious,  he  was  a  boon  companion 
with  the  gay;  grave  with  the  elders,  merry  with  the 
young;  reckless  among  the  desperate,  profligate  with 
the  depraved.  With  a  nature  so  complex  and  many- 
sided,  he  not  only  collected  round  him  wicked  and 
desperate  characters  from  all  quarters  of  the  world,  but 
he  also  attracted  many  brave  and  good  men  by  his  sim¬ 
ulation  of  virtue.  It  would  have  been  impossible  for 
him  to  have  organized  that  atrocious  attack  upon  the 
Commonwealth,  unless  that  fierce  outgrowth  of  de¬ 
praved  passions  had  rested  on  some  under-stratum  of 
agreeable  qualities  and  powers  of  endurance.” 

Born  in  the  same  year  with  Cicero,  his  unsuccessful 
rival  for  the  consulship,  and  hating  him  with  the  im¬ 
placable  hatred  with  which  a  bad,  ambitious,  and  able 
man  hates  an  opponent  who  is  his  superior  in  ability 
and  popularity  as  well  as  character,  Catiline  seems  to 
have  felt,  as  his  revolutionary  plot  ripened,  that  be¬ 
tween  the  new  consul  and  himself  the  fates  of  Rome 
must  choose.  He  had  gathered  round  him  a  band  of 
profligate  young  nobles,  deep  in  debt  like  himself,  and 
of  needy  and  unscrupulous  adventurers  of  all  classes. 
He  had  partisans  who  were  collecting  and  drilling- 
troops  for  him  in  several  parts  of  Italy.  The  pro¬ 
gramme  wTas  assassination,  abolition  of  debts,  confisca¬ 
tion  of  property:  so  little  of  novelty  is  there  in  rev¬ 
olutionary  principles.  The  first  plan  had  been  to 
murder  the  consuls  of  the  year  before,  and  seize  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  It  had  failed  through  his  own  impatience. 


30 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


He  now  hired  assassins  against  Cicero,  choosing  the 
opportunity  of  the  election  of  the  incoming  consuls, 
which  always  took  place  some  time  before  their  en¬ 
trance  on  office.  But  the  plot  was  discovered,  and  the 
election  was  put  off.  When  it  did  take  place,  Cicero 
appeared  in  the  meeting,  wearing  somewhat  ostenta¬ 
tiously  a  corslet  of  bright  steel,  to  show  that  he  knew 
liis  danger;  and  Catiline’s  partisans  found  the  place  of 
meeting  already  occupied  by  a  strong  force  of  the 
younger  citizens  of  the  middle  class,  who  had  armed 
themselves  for  the  consul’s  protection.  The  election 
passed  off  quietly,  and  Catiline  was  again  rejected.  A 
second  time  he  tried  assassination,  and  it  failed — so 
watchful  and  well  informed  was  the  intended  victim. 
And  now  Cicero,  perhaps,  was  roused  to  a  conscious¬ 
ness  that  one  or  other  must  fall;  for  in  the  unusually 
determined  measures  which  he  took  in  the  suppression 
of  the  conspiracy,  the  mixture  of  personal  alarm  with 
patriotic  indignation  is  very  perceptible.  By  a  for¬ 
tunate  chance,  the  whole  plan  of  the  conspirators  was 
betrayed.  Rebel  camps  had  been  formed  not  only  in 
Italy,  but  in  Spain  and  Mauritania:  Rome  was  to  be 
set  on  fire,  the  slaves  to  be  armed,  criminals  let  loose, 
the  friends  of  order  to  be  put  out  of  the  way.  The 
consul  called  a  meeting  of  the  Senate  in  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Stator,  a  strong  position  on  the  Palatine  Hill, 
and  denounced  the  plot  in  all  its  details,  naming  even 
the  very  day  fixed  for  the  outbreak.  The  arch-conspir¬ 
ator  had  the  audacity  to  be  present,  and  Cicero  addressed 
him  personally  in  the  eloquent  invective  which  has 
come  to  us  as  his  “First  Oration  against  Catiline.” 
His  object  was  to  drive  his  enemy  from  the  city  to  the 
camp  of  his  partisans,  and  thus  to  bring  matters  at 
onee  to  a  crisis  for  which  he  now  felt  himself  prepared. 


CICERO. 


31 


This  daily  state  of  public  insecurity  and  personal  dan¬ 
ger  had  lasted  too  long,  he  said : 

“  Therefore,  let  these  conspirators  at  once  take  their 
side;  let  them  separate  themselves  from  honest  citizens, 
and  gather  themselves  together  somewhere  else;  let 
them  put  a  wall  between  us,  as  I  have  often  said.  Let 
us  have  them  no  longer  thus  plotting  the  assassination 
of  a  consul  in  his  own  house,  overawing  our  courts  of 
•justice  with  armed  bands,  besieging  the  Senate-house 
with  drawn  swords,  collecting  their  incendiary  stores  to 
burn  our  city.  Let  us  at  last  be  able  to  read  plainly 
in  every  Roman’s  face  whether  he  be  loyal  to  his 
country  or  no.  I  may  promise  you  this,  gentlemen  of 
the  Senate — there  shall  be  no  lack  of  diligence  on  the 
part  of  your  consuls;  there  will  be,  I  trust,  no  lack  of 
dignity  and  firmness  on  your  own,  of  spirit  among 
the  Roman  knights,  of  unanimity  among  all  honest 
men,  but  that  when  Catiline  has  once  gone  from  us, 
everything  will  be  not  only  discovered  and  brought  into 
the  light  of  day,  but  also  crushed — ay,  and  punished. 
Under  such  auspices,  I  bid  you,  Catiline,  go  forth  to 
wage  your  impious  and  unhallowed  war — go,  to  the  sal¬ 
vation  of  the  state,  to  your  own  overthrow  and  destruc¬ 
tion,  to  the  ruin  of  all  who  have  joined  you  in  your 
great  wickedness  and  treason.  And  thou,  great  Jupi¬ 
ter,  whose  worship  Romulus  founded  here  coeval  with 
our  city — whom  we  call  truly  the  ‘  Stay’*  of  our  capi¬ 
tal  and  our  empire — thou  wilt  protect  thine  own  altars 
and  the  temples  of  thy  kindred  gods,  the  walls  and 
roof-trees  of  our  homes,  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  our 
citizens,  from  yon  man  and  his  accomplices.  These 
enemies  of  all  good  men,  invaders  of  their  country, 


*  “Stator.” 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


qo 


plunderers  of  Itaty,  linked  together  in  a  mutual  bond  of 
crime  and  an  alliance  of  villany,  thou  wilt  surely  visit 
with  an  everlasting  punishment,  living  and  dead!” 

Catiline’s  courage  did  not  fail  him.  He  had  been 
sitting  alone — for  all  the  other  senators  had  shrunk 
away  from  the  bench  of  wdiich  he  had  taken  possession. 
He  rose,  and  in  reply  to  Cicero,  in  a  forced  tone  of  hu¬ 
mility  protested  his  innocence.  He  tried  also  another 
point.  Was  he — a  man  of  ancient  and  noble  family — • 
to  be  hastily  condemned  by  his  fellow-nobles  on  the 
word  of  this  “foreigner,”  as  he  contemptuously  called 
Cicero — this  'parvenu  from  Arpinum?  But  the  appeal 
failed;  his  voice  was  drowned  in  the  cries  of  “traitor” 
which  arose  on  all  sides,  and  with  threats  and  curses, 
vowing  that  since  he  was  driven  to  desperation  he  would 
involve  all  Rome  in  his  ruin,  he  rushed  out  of  the  Sen¬ 
ate-house.  At  dead  of  night  he  left  the  city,  and  joined 
the  insurgent  camp  at  Fsesul£e. 

-  When  the  thunders  of  Cicero’s  eloquence  had  driven 
Catiline  from  the  Senate-house,  and  forced  him  to  join 
his  fellow-traitors,  and  so  put  himself  in  the  position 
of  levying  open  war  against  the  state,  it  remained  to 
deal  with  those  influential  conspirators  who  had  been 
detected  and  seized  within  the  city  walls.  In  three  sub¬ 
sequent  speeches  in  the  Senate  he  justified  the  course 
he  had  taken  in  allowing  Catiline  to  escape,  exposed 
further  particulars  of  the  conspiracy,  and  urged  the 
adoption  of  strong  measures  to  crush  it  out  within  the 
city.  Even  now,  not  all  Cicero’s  eloquence,  nor  all  the 
efforts  of  our  imagination  to  realize,  as  men  realized  it 
then,  the  imminence  of  the  public  danger,  can  reconcile 
the  summary  process  adopted  by  the  consul  with  our 
English  notions  of  calm  and  deliberate  justice.  Of  the 
guilt  of  the  men  there  was  no  doubt;  most  of  them  even 


CICERO. 


admitted  it.  But  there  was  no  formal  trial;  and  a  few 
hours  after  a  vote  of  death  had  been  passed  upon  them 
in  a  hesitating  Senate,  Lentulus  and  Cethegus,  two 
members  of  that  august  body,  with  three  of  their  com¬ 
panions  in  guilt,  were  brought  from  their  separate 
places  of  confinement,  with  some  degree  of  secrecy  (as 
appears  from  different  writers),  carried  down  into  the 
gloomy  prison-vaults  of  the  Tullianum,*  and  there 
quietly  strangled,  by  the  sole  authority  of  the  consul. 
Unquestionably  they  deserved  death,  if  ever  political 
criminals  deserved  it:  the  lives  and  liberties  of  good 
citizens  were  in  danger;  it  was  necessary  to  strike  deep 
and  strike  swiftly*  at  a  conspiracy  which  extended  no 
man  knew  how  widely,  and  in  which  men  like  Julius 
Caesar  and  Crassus  were  strongly  suspected  of  being 
engaged.  The  consuls  had  been  armed  with  extra-con¬ 
stitutional  powers,  conveyed  by  special  resolution  of 
the  Senate  in  the  comprehensive  formula  that  they 
“were  to  look  to  it  that  the  state  suffered  no  damage.” 
Still,  without  going  so  far  as  to  call  this  unexampled 
proceeding,  as  the  German  critic  Mommsen  does,  “an 
act  of  the  most  brutal  tyranny,”  it  is  easy  to  under¬ 
stand  how  Mr.  Forsyth,  bringing  a  calm  and  dispas¬ 
sionate  legal  judgment  to  bear  upon  the  case,  finds  it 
impossible  1o  reconcile  it  with  our  ideas  of  dignified  and 
even-handed  justice. f  It  was  the  hasty  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  the  act  of  a  weak  government  uncertain 
of  its  very  friends,  under  the  influence  of  terror — a 


*  A  state  dungeon,  said  to  have  been  built  in  the  reign  of  Ser- 
vius  Tullius.  It  was  twelve  feet  under  ground.  Executions 
often  took  place  there,  and  the  bodies  of  the  criminals  were 
afterwards  thrown  down  the  Gemoniam  steps  (which  were  close 
at  hand)  into  the  Forum,  for  the  people  to  see. 

+  Life  of  Cicero,  »  119 


34 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY 


terror  for  which,  no  doubt,  there  were  abundant 
grounds.  When  Cicero  stood  on  the  prison  steps, 
where  he  had  waited  to  receive  the  report  of  those  who 
were  making  sure  work  with  the  prisoners  within,  and 
announced  their  fate  to  the  assembled  crowd  below  in 
the  single  word  “Vixerunt”  (a  euphemism  which  we 
can  only  weakly  translate  into  “They  have  lived  their 
life”),  no  doubt  he  felt  that  he  and  the  republic  held 
theirs  from  that  moment  by  a  firmer  tenure;  no  doubt 
very  many  of  those  who  heard  him  felt  that  they  could 
breathe  again,  now  that  the  grasp  of  Catiline’s  assassins 
was,  for  the  moment  at  all  events,  off  their  throats;  and 
the  crowd  who  followed  the  consul  home  were  siucere 
enough  when  they  hailed  such  a  vigorous  avenger  as 
the  “Father  of  his  Country.”  But  none  the  less  it  was 
that  which  politicians  have  called  worse  than  a  crime — 
it  was  a  political  blunder;  and  Cicero  came  to  find  it  so 
in  after  years;  though — partly  from  his  immense  self¬ 
appreciation,  and  partly  from  an  honest  determination 
to  stand  by  his  act  and  deed  in  all  its  consequences — he 
never  suffered  the  shadow  of  such  a  confession  to  ap¬ 
pear  in  his  most  intimate  correspondence.  He  claimed 
for  himself  ever  afterwards  the  sole  glory  of  having 
saved  the  state  by  such  prompt  and  decided  action ;  and 
in  this  he  was  fully  borne  out  by  the  facts:  justifiable 
or  unjustifiable,  the  act  wTas  his;  and  there  were  burn¬ 
ing  hearts  at  Rome  which  dared  not  speak  out  against 
the  popular  consul,  but  set  it  down  to  his  sole  account 
against  the  day  of  retribution. 

For  the  present,  however,  all  went  successfully.  The 
boldness  of  the  consul’s  measures  cowed  the  disaffected, 
and  confirmed  the  timid  and  wavering.  His  colleague 
Antonius — himself  by  no  means  to  be  depended  on  at 
this  crisis,  having  but  lately  formed  a  coalition  with 


CICERO. 


35 


Catiline  as  against  Cicero  in  the  election  for  consuls — 
had,  by  judicious  management,  been  got  away  from 
Rome  to  take  the  command  against  the  rebel  army  in 
Etruria.  He  did  not,  indeed,  engage  in  the  campaign 
actively  in  person,  having  just  now  a  fit  of  the  gout, 
either  real  or  pretended;  but  his  lieutenant-general  was 
an  old  soldier  who  cared  chiefly  for  his  duty,  and 
Catiline’s  band — reckless  and  desperate  men  who  had 
gathered  to  his  camp  from  all  motives  and  from  all 
quarters — were  a  length  brought  to  bay,  and  died  fight¬ 
ing  hard  to  the  last.  Scarcely  a  man  of  them,  except 
the  slaves  and  robbers  who  had  swelled  their  ranks, 
either  escaped  or  was  made  prisoner.  Catiline’s  body 
— easily  recognized  by  his  remarkable  height — was 
found,  still  breathing,  lying  far  in  advance  of  his  fol¬ 
lowers,  surrounded  by  the  dead  bodies  of  the  Roman 
legionaries — for  the  loss  on  the  side  of  the  Republic  had 
been  very  severe.  The  last  that  remained  to  him  of 
the  many  noble  qualities  which  had  marked  his  earlier 
years  was  a  desperate  personal  courage. 

For  the  month  that  yet  remained  of  his  consulship, 
Cicero  was  the  foremost  man  in  Rome — and,  as  a  con¬ 
sequence,  in  the  whole  world.  Nobles  and  commons 
vied  in  doing  honor  to  the  saviour  of  the  state.  Catu- 
lus  and  Cato — men  from  whose  lips  words  of  honor 
came  with  a  double  weight — saluted  him  publicly  by 
that  memorable  title  of  Pater  Patrice  ;  and  not  only  the 
capital,  but  most  of  the  provincial  towns  of  Italy,  voted 
him  some  public  testimony  of  his  unrivaled  services. 
No  man  had  a  more  profound  appreciation  of  those 
services  than  the  great  orator  himself.  It  is  possible 
that  other  men  have  felt  quite  as  vain  of  their  own  ex¬ 
ploits,  and  on  far  less  grounds;  but  surely  no  man  ever 
paraded  his  self-complacency  like  Cicero.  His  vanity 


86 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


was  indeed  a  thing  to  marvel  at  rather  than  to  smile  at, 
because  it  was  the  vanity  of  so  able  a  man.  Other  great 
men  have  been  either  too  reallv  great  to  entertain  the 
feeling,  or  have  been  wise  enough  to  keep  it  to  them¬ 
selves.  But  to  Cicero  it  must  have  been  one  of  the  en¬ 
joyments  of  his  life.  He  harped  upon  his  consulship 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  in  his  letters,  in  his  judicial 
pleadings,  in  his  public  speeches  (and,  we  may  be  sure, 
in  his  conversation),  until  one  would  think  his  friends 
must  have  hated  the  subject  even  more  than  his  enemies. 
He  wrote  accounts  of  it  in  prose  and  verse,  in  Latin 
and  Greek — and,  no  doubt,  only  limited  them  to  those 
languages  because  they  were  the  only  ones  he  knew. 
The  well-known  line  which  provoked  the  ridicule  of 
critics  like  Juvenal  and  Quintilian,  because  of  the  un¬ 
lucky  jingle  peculiarly  unpleasant  to  a  Roman  car — 

“  O  fortunatam  natam  me  consule  Romam !” 

expresses  the  sentiment  which — rhyme  or  no  rhyme, 
reason  or  no  reason — he  was  continually  repeating  in 
some  form  or  other  to  himself  and  to  every  one  who 
would  listen. 

His  consulship  closed  in  glory ;  but  on  his  very  last 
day  of  office  there  was  a  warning  voice  raised  amid 
the  triumph,  which  might  have  opened  his  eyes — 
perhaps  it  did — to  the  troubles  which  were  to  come. 
He  stood  up  in  the  Rostra  to  make  the  usual  address  to 
the  people  on  laying  down  his  authority.  Metellus 
Nepos  had  been  newly  elected  one  of  the  tribunes:  it 
was  his  office  to  guard  jealously  all  the  rights  and  privi¬ 
leges  of  the  Roman  commons  Influenced,  it  is  said, 
by  Ca3sar — possibly  himself  an  undiscovered  partisan  of 
Catiline — he  dealt  a  blow  tit  the  retiring  consul  under 
cover  of  a  discharge  of  duty.  As  Cicero  was  about  to 


CICERO. 


37 


speak,  be  interposed  a  tribune’s  “veto”;  no  naan  should 
be  beard,  be  said,  wlio  had  put  Roman  citizens  to  death 
without  a  trial.  There  was  consternation,  in  the  Forum. 
Cicero  could  not  dispute  what  was  a  perfectly  legal  ex¬ 
ercise  of  the  tribune’s  power;  only,  in  a  few  emphatic 
words  which  he  seized  the  opportunity  of  adding  to  the 
usual  formal  oath  on  quitting  office,  he  protested  that 
his  act  had  saved  Rome.  The  people  shouted  in  an¬ 
swer,  “Thou  hast  said  true!”  and  Cicero  went  home  a 
private  citizen,  but  with  that  hearty  tribute  from  his 
grateful  countrymen  ringing  pleasantly  in  his  ears. 
But  the  bitter  words  of  Metellus  were  yet  to  be  echoed 
by  his  enemies  again  and  again,  until  that  fickle  popu¬ 
lar  voice  took  them  up,  and  howled  them  after  the  once 
popular  consul. 

Let  us  follow  him  for  a  while  into  private  life;  a 
pleasanter  companionship  for  us,  we  confess,  than  the 
unstable  glories  of  the  political  arena  at  Rome.  In  his 
family  and  social  relations  the  great  orator  wins  from 
us  an  amount  of  personal  interest  and  sympathy  which 
he  fails  sometimes  to  command  in  his  career  as  a  states¬ 
man.  At  forty-five  years  of  age  he  has  become  a  very 
wealthy  man — has  bought  for  something  like  £30,000  a 
noble  mansion  on  the  Palatine  Hill;  and  besides  the 
old-fashioned  family  seat  near  Arpinum — now  become 
his  own  by  his  father’s  death — he  has  built,  or  enlarged, 
or  bought  as  they  stood,  villas  at  Antium,  at  Formise, 
at  Pompeii,  at  Cumae,  at  Puteoli,  and  at  half-a-dozen 
other  places,  besides  the  one  favorite  spot  of  all,  which 
was  to  him  almost  what  Abbotsford  was  to  Scott,  the 
home  which  it  was  the  delight  of  his  life  to  embellish — 
his  country-house  among  the  pleasant  hills  of  Tusculum.* 


*  Near  the  modern  town  of  Frascati.  But  there  is  no  certainty 
as  to  the  site  of  Cicero’s  villa. 


38 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


It  had  once  belonged  to  Sulla,  and  was  about  twelve 
miles  from  Rome.  In  that  beloved  building  and  its 
arrangements  he  indulged,  as  an  ample  purse  allowed 
him,  not  only  a  highly-cultivated  taste,  but  in  some  re¬ 
spects  almost  a  whimsical  fancy.  “A  mere  cottage,” 
he  himself  terms  it  in  one  place;  but  this  was  when  he 
was  deprecating  accusations  of  extravagance  which 
were  brought  against  him,  and  we  all  understand  some¬ 
thing  of  the  pride  which  in  such  matters  “  apes  humil¬ 
ity.”  He  would  have  it  on  the  plan  of  the  Academia  at 
Athens,  with  its  palaestra  and  open  colonnade,  where, 
as  he  tells  us,  he  could  walk  and  discuss  politics  or  phi¬ 
losophy  with  his  friends.  Greek  taste  and  design  were 
as  fashionable  among  the  Romans  of  that  day  as  the 
Louis  Quatorze  style  was  with  our  grandfathers.  But 
its  grand  feature  was  a  library,  and  its  most  valued  fur¬ 
niture  was  books.  Without  books,  he  said,  a  house 
was  but  a  body  without  a  soul.  He  entertained  for 
these  treasures  not  only  the  calm  love  of  a  reader,  but 
the  passion  of  a  bibliophile;  he  was  particular  about  his 
bindings,  and  admired  the  gay  colors  of  the  covers  in 
which  the  precious  manuscripts  were  kept  as  well  as 
the  more  intellectual  beauties  within.  He  had  clever 
Greek  slaves  employed  from  time  to  time  in  making 
copies  of  all  such  works  as  were  not  to  be  readily  pur-, 
chased.  He  could  walk  across,  too,  as  he  tells  us,  to 
his  neighbor’s,  the  young  Lucullus,  a  kind  of  ward  of 
his,  and  borrow  from  the  library  of  that  splendid  man¬ 
sion  any  book  he  wanted.  His  friend  Atticus  collected 
for  him  everywhere — manuscripts,  paintings,  statuary; 
though  for  sculpture  he  professes  not  to  care  much,  ex¬ 
cept  for  such  subjects  as  might  form  appropriate  deco¬ 
rations  for  his  palaestra  and  his  library.  Very  pleasant 
must  have  been  the  days  spent  together  by  the  two 


CICERO. 


39 


friends — so  alike  in  their  private  tastes  and  habits,  so 
far  apart  in  their  chosen  course  of  life — when  they  met 
there  in  the  brief  holidays  which  Cicero  stole  from  the 
law-courts  and  the  Forum,  and  sauntered  in  the  shady 
walks,  or  lounged  in  the  cool  library,  in  that  home  of 
lettered  ease,  where  the  busy  lawyer  and  politician  de¬ 
clared  that  he  forgot  for  a  while  all  the  toils  and  vexa¬ 
tions  of  public  life. 

He  had  his  little  annoyances,  however,  even  in  these 
happy  hours  of  retirement.  Morning  aalls  were  an  in¬ 
fliction  to  which  a  country  gentleman  was  liable  in  an¬ 
cient  Italy  as  in  modern  England.  A  man  like  Cicero 
was  very  good  company,  and  somewhat  of  a  lion  be¬ 
sides;  and  country  neighbors,  wherever  he  set  up  his 
rest,  insisted  on  bestowing  their  tediousness  on  him. 
His  villa  at  Formise,  his  favorite  residence  next  to  Tus- 
culum,  was,  he  protested,  more  like  a  public  hall. 
Most  of  his  visitors,  indeed,  had  the  consideration  not  to 
trouble  him  after  ten  or  eleven  in  the  forenoon  (fashion¬ 
able  calls  in  those  days  began  uncomfortably  early); 
but  there  were  one  or  two,  especially  his  next-door 
neighbor,  Arrius,  and  a  friend’s  friend,  named  Sebosus, 
who  were  in  and  out  at  all  hours:  the  former  had  an 
unfortunate  taste  for  philosophical  discussion,  and  was 
postponing  his  return  to  Rome  (he  was  good  enough  to 
say)  from  day  to  day  in  order  to  enjoy  these  long  morn¬ 
ings  in  Cicero’s  conversation.  Such  are  the  doleful 
complaints  in  two  or  three  of  the  letters  to  Atticus; 
but,  like  all  such  complaints,  they  were  probably  only 
half  in  earnest:  popularity,  even  at  a  watering-place^ 
was  not  very  unpleasant,  and  the  WTiter  doubtless  knew 
how  to  practice  the  social  philosophy  which  he  recom¬ 
mends  to  others,  and  took  his  place  cheerfully  and 
pleasantly  in  the  society  which  he  found  about  him — 


40  THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY, 

not  despising  his  honest  neighbors  because  they  had 
not  all  adorned  a  consulship  or  saved  a  state. 

There  were  times  when  Cicero  ' fancied  that  this 
rural  life,  with  all  its  refinements  of  wealth  and  taste 
and  literary  leisure,  was  better  worth  living  than  the 
public  life  of  the  capital.  His  friends  and  his  books, 
he  said,  were  the  company  most  congenial  to  him; 
“politics  might  go  to  the  dogs;”  to  count  the  waves 
as  they  rolled  on  the  beach  was  happiness;  he  “had 
rather  be  mayor  of  Antium  than  consul  at  Rome;” 
“rather  sit  in  his  own  library  with  Atticus  in  their 
favorite  seat  under  the  bust  of  Aristotle  than  in  the 
curule  chair.”  It  is  true  that  these  longings  for  retire¬ 
ment  usually  followed  some  political  defeat  or  mortifi¬ 
cation;  that  his  natural  sphere,  the  only  life  in  which 
he  could  be  really  happy,  was  in  the  keen  excitement 
of  party  warfare — the  glorious  battle-field  of  the  Senate 
and  the  Forum.  The  true  key-note  of  his  mind  is  to  be 
found  in  these  words  to  his  friend  Coelius:  “Cling  to 
the  city,  my  friend,  and  live  in  her  light:  all  employ¬ 
ment  abroad,  as  I  have  felt  from  my  earliest  manhood, 
is  obscure  and  petty  for  those  who  have  abilities  to 
make  them  famous  at  Rome.”  Yet  the  other  strain  had 
nothing  in  it  of  affectation  or  hypocrisy:  it  was  the 
schoolboy  escaped  from  work,  thoroughly  enjoying  his 
holiday,  and  fancying  that  nothing  would  be  so  delight¬ 
ful  as  to  have  holidays  always.  In  this,  again,  there 
was  a  similarity  between  Cicero’s  taste  and  that  of 
Horace.  The  poet  loved  his  Sabine  farm  and  all  its 
rural  delights — after  his  fashion ;  and  perhaps  thought 
honestly  that  he  loved  it  more  than  he  really  did. 
Above  all,  he  loved  to  write  about  it.  With  that  fancy, 
half-real,  perhaps,  and  half-affected,  for  pastoral  sim¬ 
plicity,  which  has  always  marked  a  state  of  over-luxuri- 


CICERO. 


41 


ous  civilizatiou,  he  protests  to  himself  that  there  is 
nothing  like  the  country.  But  perhaps  Horace  dis¬ 
charges  a  sly  jest  at  himself,  in  a  sort  of  aside  to  his 
readers,  4n  the  person  of  Alphius,  the  rich  city  money¬ 
lender,  vWho  is  made  to  utter  that  pretty  apostrophe  to 
.rural  happiness : — 

‘“  Happy  the  man,  in  busy  schemes  unskilled, 

Who,  living  simply,  like  our  sires  of  old, 

Tills  the  few  acres  which  his  father  tilled, 

Vexed  by  no  thoughts  of  usury  or  gold.” 

Martin’s  “Horace.” 

And  who,  after  thus  expatiating  for  some  stanzas  on 
the  charms  of  the  country,  calls  in  all  his  money  one 
week  in  order  to  settle  there,  and  puts  it  all  out  again 
(no  doubt  at  higher  interest)  the  week  after.  “  Orus, 

■  quando  te  apiciam!”  has  been  the  cry  of  public  men 
before  and  since  Cicero’s  day,  to  whom,  as  to  the  great 
Roman,  banishment  from  political  life,  and  condemna¬ 
tion  to  perpetual  leisure,  would  have  been  a  sentence 
that  would  have  crushed  their  very  souls. 

He  was  very  happy  at  this  time  in  his  family.  His 
wife  and  he  loved  one  another  with  an  honest  affection; 
anything  more  would  have  been  out  of  the  natural  course 
of  things  in  Roman  society  at  any  date,  and  even  so 
much  as  this  was  become  a  notable  exception  in  these 
later  days.  It  is  paying  a  high  honor  to  the  character 
of  Cicero  and  his  household — and  from  all  evidence  that 
has  come  down  to  us  it  may  be  paid  with  truth — that 
even  in  those  evil  times  it  might  have  presented  the 
original  of  what  Virgil  drew  as  almost  a  fancy  picture, 
or  one  to  be  realized  only  in  some  happy  retirement  into 
which  the  civilized  vices  of  the  capital  had  never  peue* 
trated— - 


42 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


“  Where  loving  children-climb  to  reach  a  kiss— 

A  home  of  chaste  delights  and  wedded  bliss.”  * 

His  little  daughter,  Tullia,  or  Tulliola,  which  was  her 
pet  name  (the  Roman  diminutives  being  formed  some¬ 
what  more  elegantly  than  ours,  by  adding  a  syllable 
instead  of  cutting  short),  was  the  delight  of  his  heart; 
in  his  earlier  letters  to  Atticus  he  is  constantly  making 
some  affectionate  mention  of  her — sending  her  love,  or 
some  playful  message  which  his  friend  would  under¬ 
stand.  She  had  been  happily  married  (though  she  was 
then  but  thirteen  at  the  most)  the  year  before  his  con¬ 
sulship;  but  the  affectionate  intercourse  between  father 
and  daughter  was  never  interrupted  until  her  early 
death.  His  only  son,  Marcus,  born  after  a  considerable 
interval,  who  succeeded  to  Tullia’s  place  as  a  household 
pet,  is  made  also  occasionally  to  send  some  childish 
word  of  remembrance  to  his  father’s  old  friend:  “Cicero 
the  Little  sends  his  compliments  to  Titus  the  Athenian” 
— “Cicero  the  Philosopher  salutes  Titus  the  Politi¬ 
cian.  ”f  These  messages  are  written  in  Greek  at  the 
end  of  the  letters.  Abeken  thinks  that  in  the  originals 
they  might  have  been  added  in  the  little  Cicero’s  own 
hand,  “  to  show  that  he  had  begun  Greek;”  “  a  conjec¬ 
ture,”  says  Mr.  Merivale,  “  too  pleasant  not  to  be  readily 
admitted.”  The  boy  gave  his  father  some  trouble  in 
dfter  life.  He  served  with  some  credit  as  an  officer  of 
cavalry  under  Pompey  in  Greece,  or  at  least  got  into  no 
trouble  there.  Some  years  after,  he  wished  to  take  ser- 


*  “Interia  dulces  pendent  circum  oscula  nati; 

Casta  pudicitiam  servat  domus.” 

—Georg,  ii.  224. 

t  See  “  Letters  to  Atticus,”  ii.  9,  12;  Merivale’s  translation  of 
Abekep’s  “Cicero  in  Seinen  Briefen,”  p.  114. 


CICERO. 


43 


vice  in  Spain,  under  Caesar,  against  the  sons  of  Pompey; 
but  the  father  did  not  approve  of  this  change  of  side, 
He  persuaded  him  to  go  to  Athens  to  study  instead, 
allowing  him  what  both  Atticus  and  himself  thought  a 
very  liberal  income — not  sufficient,  however,  for  him  to 
keep  a  horse,  which  Cicero  held  to  be  an  unnecessary 
luxury.  Probably  the  young  cavalry  officer  might  not 
have  been  of  the  same  opinion ;  at  any  rate,  he  got  into 
more  trouble  among  the  philosophers  than  he  did  in  the 
army.  He  spent  a  great  deal  more  than  his  allowance, 
and  one  of  the  professors,  whose  lectures  he  attended, 
had  the  credit  of  helping  him  to  spend  it.  The  young 
man  must  have  shared  the  kindly  disposition  of  his 
father.  He  wrote  a  confidential  letter'to  Tiro;  the  old 
family  servant,  showing  very  good  feeling,  and  promis¬ 
ing  reformation.  It  is  doubtful  how  far  the  promise 
was  kept.  He  rose,  however,  subsequently  to  place  and 
power  under  Augustus,  but  died  without  issue;  and,  so 
far  at  least  as  history  knows  them,  the  line  of  the 
Ciceros  was  extinct.  It  had  flashed  into  fame  with  the 
great  orator,  and  died  out  with  him. 

All  Cicero’s  biographers  have  found  considerable 
difficulty  in  tracing,  at  all  satisfactorily,  the  sources  of 
the  magnificent  fortune  which  must  have  been  required 
to  keep  up,  and  to  embellish  in  accordance  with  so 
luxurious  a  taste,  so  many  residences  in  all  parts  of 
the  country.  True,  these  expenses  often  led  Cicero 
into  debt  and  difficulties;  but  what  he  borrowed  from 
his  friends  he  seems  always  to  have  repaid,  so  that  the 
money  must  have  come  in  from  some  quarter  or  other. 
His  patrimony  at  Arpinum  would  not  appear  to  have 
been  large;  he  got  only  some  £3000  or  £4000  dowry 
with  Terentia;  and  we  find  no  hint  of  his  making 
money  by  any  commercial  speculations,  as  some  Roman 


44 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


gentlemen  did.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  barest 
justice  to  him  to  say  that  his  hands  were  clean  from 
those  ill-gotten  gains  which  made  the  fortunes  of  many 
of  the  wealthiest  public  men  at  Rome,  who  were  crimi¬ 
nals  in  only  a  less  degree  than  Yerres — peculation,  ex¬ 
tortion,  and  downright  robbery  in  the  unfortunate 
provinces  which  the}7'  were  sent  out  to  govern.  Such 
opportunities  lay  as  ready  to  his  grasp  as  to  other 
men’s,  but  he  steadily  eschewed  them.  His  declining 
the  tempting  prize  of  a  provincial  government,  which 
was  his  right  on  the  expiration  of  his  prsetorship,  may 
fairly  be  attributed  to  his  having  in  view  the  higher 
object  of  the  consulship,  to  secure  which,  by  an  early 
and  persistent  canvass,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  remain 
in  Rome.  But  he  again  waived  the  right  when  his 
consulship  was  over;  and  when,  some  years  afterwards, 
he  went  unwillingly  as  proconsul  to  Cilicia,  his  admin¬ 
istration  there,  as  before  in  his  lower  office,  in  Sicily, 
was  marked  by  a  probity  and  honesty  quite  excep¬ 
tional  in  a  Roman  governor.  His  emoluments,  con¬ 
fined  strictly  -within  the  legal  bounds,  would  be  only 
moderate,  and,  whatever  they  were,  came  too  late  in 
his  life  to  be  any  explanation  of  his  earlier  expenditure. 
He  received  many  valuable  legacies  at  different  times, 
from  personal  friends  or  grateful  clients  who  died 
childless  (be  it  remembered  how  the  barrenness  of  the 
marriage  union  had  become  then,  at  Rome,  as  it  is  said 
to  be  in  some  countries  now,  the  reproach  of  a  sensual 
and  effete  aristocracy);  he  boasts  himself,  in  one  of  his 
“Philippics,”  that  he  had  received  from  this  source 
above  £170,000.  Mr.  Forsyth  also  notices  the  large 
presents  that  were  made  by  foreign  kings  and  states  to 
conciliate  the  support  and  advocacy  of  the  leading  men 
at  Rome — “we  can  hardly  call  them  bribes,  for  in 


CICERO. 


45 


many  cases  the  relation  of  patron  and  client  was  avow¬ 
edly  established  between  a  foreign  state  and  some 
influential  Roman:  and  it  became  his  duty,  as  of  course 
it  was  his  interest,  to  defend  it  in  the  Senate  and  before 
the  people.”  In  this  way,  he  thinks,  Cicero  held  “re¬ 
tainers  ”  from  Dyrracliium;  and,  he  might  have  added, 
from  Sicily.  The  great  orator’s  own  boast  was  that 
he  never  took  anything  for  his  services  as  an  advocate; 
and,  indeed,  such  payments  were  forbidden  by  law.* 
But  with  all  respect  for  Cicero’s  material  honesty,  one 
learns  from  his  letters  unfortunately,  not  to  put  implicit 
confidence  in  him  when  he  is  in  a  boasting  vein;  and 
he  might  not  look  upon  voluntary  gifts,  after  a  cause 
was  decided,  in  the  light  of  payment.  Psetus,  one  of 
his  clients,  gave  him  a  valuable  library  of  books;  and 
one  cannot  believe  that  this  was  a  solitary  instance  of 
the  quiet  evasion  of  the  Cincian  law,  or  that  there  were 
not  other  transactions  of  the  same  nature  which  never 
found  their  way  into  any  letter  of  Cicero’s  that  was 
likely  to  come  down  to  us. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HIS  EXILE  AND  BETUIIN. 

We  must  return  to  Rome.  Cicero  had  never  left  it 
but  for  his  short  occasional  holiday.  Though  no  longer 
in  office,  the  ex-consul  was  still  one  of  the  foremost 


*  The  principle  passed,  like  so  many  others,  from  the  old 
Roman  law  into  our  own,  so  that  to  this  very  day,  a  barrister’s 
fees  being  considered  in  the  nature  of  an  honorarium,  or  volun¬ 
tary  present  made  to  him  for  his  services,  are  not  recoverable  by 

law. 


46 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


public  men,  and  liis  late  dignity  gave  him  important 
precedence  in  the  Senate.  He  was  soon  to  be  brought 
into  contact,  and  more  or  less  into  opposition,  with  the 
two  great  chiefs  of  parties  in  whose  feuds  he  became  at 
length  so  fatally  involved.  Pompey  and  Csesar  were 
both  gradually  becoming  formidable,  and  both  had 
ambitious  plans  of  their  own,  totally  inconsistent  with 
any  remnant  of  republican  liberty — plans  which  Cicero 
more  or  less  suspected,  and  of  that  suspicion  they  were 
probably  both  aware.  Both,  by  their  successful  cam¬ 
paigns,  had  not  only  acquired  fame  and  honors,  but  a 
far  more  dangerous  influence — an  influence  which  was 
to  overwhelm  all  others  hereafter — in  the  affection  of 
their  legions.  Pompey  was  still  absent  in  Spain,  but 
soon  to  return  from  his  long  war  against  Mithridates,  to 
enjoy  the  most  splendid  triumph  ever  seen  at  Rome, 
and  to  take  the  lead  of  the  oligarchical  party  just  so 
long  and  so  far  as  they  would  help  him  to  the  power  he 
coveted.  The  enemies  whom  Cicero  had  made  by  his 
strong  measures  in  the  matter  of  the  Catilinarian  con¬ 
spiracy  now  took  advantage  of  Pompey’s  name  and 
popularity  to  make  an  attack  upon  him.  The  tribune 
Metellus,  constant  to  his  old  party  watchword,  moved 
in  the  Senate  that  the  successful  general,  upon  whom  all 
expectations  were  centred,  should  be  recalled  to  Rome 
with  his  army  “to  restore  the  violated  constitution.” 
All  knew  against  whom  the  motion  was  aimed,  and 
what  the  violation  of  the  constitution  meant;  it  was  the 
putting  citizens  to  death  without  a  trial.  The  measure 
was  not  passed,  though  Csesar,  jealous  of  Cicero  even 
more  than  of  Pompey,  lent  himself  to  the  attempt. 

But  the  blow  fell  on  Cicero  at  last  from  a  very  dif¬ 
ferent  quarter,  and  from  the  mere  private  grudge  of  a 
determined  and  unprincipled  man.  Publius  Clodius, 


CICERO. 


47 


a  young  man  of  noble  family,  once  a  friend  and  sup¬ 
porter  of  Cicero  against  Catiline,  but  who  had  already 
made  himself  notorious  for  the  most  abandoned  profli¬ 
gacy,  was  detected,  in  a  woman’s  dress,  at  the  celebra¬ 
tion  of  the  rites  of  the  Bona  Dea — a  kind  of  religious 
freemasonry  amongst  the  Roman  ladies,  the  mysteries 
of  which  are  very  little  known,  and  probably  would  in 
any  case  be  best  left  without  explanation.  But  for  a 
man  to  have  been  present  at  them  was  a  sacrilege 
hitherto  unheard  of,  and  which  was  held  to  lay  the 
whole  city  under  the  just  wrath  of  the  offended  god¬ 
dess.  The  celebration  had  been  held  in  the  house  of 
Caesar,  as  praetor,  under  the  presidency  of  his  wife, 
Pompeia;  and  it  was  said  that  the  object  of  the  young 
profligate  was  an  intrigue  with  that  lady.  The  circum 
stances  arc  not  favorable  to  the  suspicion ;  but  Caesar 
divorced  her  forthwith,  with  the  often-quoted  remark 
that  **  Caesar’s  wife  must  not  be  even  suspected.”  For 
this  crime — unpardonable  even  in  that  corrupt  society, 
when  crimes  of  far  deeper  dye  passed  almost  unre¬ 
proved — Clodius  was,  after  some  delay,  brought  to 
public  trial.  The  defence  set  up  was  an  alibi,  and 
Cicero  came  forward  as  a  witness  to  disprove  it:  he 
had  met  and  spoken  with  Clodius  in  Rome  that  very 
evening.  The  evidence  was  clear  enough,  but  the 
jury  had  been  tampered  with  by  Clodius  and  his  friends; 
liberal  bribery,  and  other  corrupting  influences  of  even 
a  more  disgraceful  kind,  had  been  successfully  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  majority  of  them,  and  he  escaped  con¬ 
viction  by  a  few  votes.  But  he  never  forgave  the  part 
which  Cicero  had  taken  against  him;  and  from  that 
time  forth  the  latter  found  a  new,  unscrupulous,  inde¬ 
fatigable  enemy,  of  whose  services  his  old  opponents 
gladly  availed  themselves.  Cicero  himself  for  some 


48 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


time  underrated  this  new  danger.  He  lost  no  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  taunting  the  unconvicted  criminal  in  the  bit¬ 
terest  terms  in  the  Senate,  and  of  exchanging  with  him 
— very  much  to  the  detriment  of  his  own  character 
and  dignity,  in  our  modern  eyes — the  coarsest  jests 
when  they  met  in  the  street.  But  the  temptation  to 
a  jest,  of  whatever  kind,  was  always  irresistible  to 
Cicero:  it  was  a  weakness  for  which  he  more  than 
once  paid  dearly,  for  they  were  remembered  against 
him  when  he  had  forgotten  them.  Meanwhile  Clodius 
— a  sort  of  milder  Catiline,  not  without  many  popular 
qualities — had  got  himself  elected  tribune;  degrading 
himself  formally  from  his  own  order  of  nobles  for 
that  purpose,  since  the  tribune  must  be  a  man  of  the 
commons.  The  powers  of  the  office  were  formidable 
for  all  purposes  of  obstruction  and  attack;  Clodius  had 
taken  pains  to  ingratiate  himself  with  all  classes;  and, 
the  consuls  of  the  year  were  men  of  infamous  character, 
for  whom  he  had  found  a  successful  means  of  bribery 
by  the  promise  of  getting  a  special  law  passed  to  secure 
them  the  choice  of  the  richest  provincial  governments 
— those  coveted  fields  of  plunder — o*f  which  they  would 
otherwise  have  had  to  take  their  chance  by  lot.  When 
all  was  ripe  for  his  revenge,  he  brought  before  the 
people  in  full  assembly  the  following  bill  of  pains  and 
penalties:  “Be  it  enacted,  that  whoever  has  put  to 
death  a  Roman  citizen  uncondemned  in  due  form  of 
trial,  shall  be  interdicted  from  fire  and  water.”  Such 
was  the  legal  form  of  words  which  implied  banishment 
from  Rome,  outlawry,  and  social  excommunication. 
Every  man  knew  against  whom  the  motion  was  level¬ 
ed.  It  was  carried — carried  in  spite  of  the  indigna¬ 
tion  of  all  honest  men  in  Rome,  in  spite  of  all  Cicero’s 
humiliating  efforts  to  obtain  its  rejection, 


CICERO. 


49 


It  was  in  vain  that  he  pu*t  on  mowning,  as  was  the 
custom  with  those  who  were  impeached  of  public 
crimes,  and  went  about  the  streets  thus  silently  im¬ 
ploring  the  pity  of  his  fellow-citizens.  In  vain  the 
whole  of  his  own  equestrian  order,  and  in  fact,  as  he 
declares,  “all  honest  men”  (it  was  his  favorite  term 
for  men  of  his  own  party),  adopted  the  same  dress  to 
show  their  sympathy,  and  twenty  thousand  youths 
of  good  family — all  in  mourning — accompanied  him 
through  the  city.  The  Senate  even  met  and  passed 
a  resolution  that  their  whole  house  should  put  on 
mourning  too.  But  Gabinius,  one  of  the  consuls,  at 
once  called  a  public  meeting,  and  warned  the  people 
not  to  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  the  Senate 
was  Rome. 

In  vain,  also,  was- any  personal  appeal  which  Cicero 
could  make  to  the  only  two  men  who  might  have  had 
influence  enough  to  sway  the  popular  vote.  He  was 
ostensibly  on  good  terms  both  with  Ponrpey  and  Csesar; 
in  fact,  he  made  it  his  policy  so  to  be.  He  foresaw 
that  on  their  future  course  would  probably  depend 
the  fate  of  Rome,  and  he  persuaded  himself,  perhaps 
honestly,  that  he  could  make  them  “  better  citizens.” 
But  he  trusted  neither;  and  both  saw  in  him  an  oh 
stacle  to  their  own  ambition.  Caesar  now  looked  on 
coldly,  not  altogether  sorry  at  the  turn  which  affairs 
had  taken,  and  faintly  suggested  that  perhaps  some 
“milder  measure”  might  serve  to  meet  the  case.  From 
Pompey  Cicero  had  a  right  to  look  for  some  active 
*  support;  indeed,  such  had  been  promised  in  case  of 
need.  He  threw  himself  at  his  feet  with  prayers  and 
tears,  but  even  this  last  humiliation  was  in  vain;  and 
he  anticipated  the  execution  of  that  disgraceful  edict 
by  a  voluntary  withdrawal  into  exile.  Piso,  one  of 


50 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


the  consuls,  had  satirically  suggested  that  thus  he 
might  “  save  Rome”  a  second  time.  His  property  was 
at  once  confiscated;  his  villas  at  Tusculum  and  at  For- 
miae  were  plundered  and  laid  waste,  the  consuls  claim¬ 
ing  the  lion’s  share  of  the  spoil;  and  Clodius,  with  his 
armed  mob,  set  fire  to  the  noble  house  on  the  Palatine, 
razed  it  to  the  ground,  and  erected  on  the  site  a  temple 
to — Liberty  ! 

Cicero  had  friends  who  strongly  urged  him  to  defy 
the  edict;  to  remain  at  Rome,  and  call  on  all  good 
citizens  to  arm  in  his  defense.  Modern  historians  very 
generally  have  assumed  that,  if  he  could  have  made  up 
his  mind  to  such  a  course  it  would  probably  have  been 
successful.  He  was  to  rely,  we  suppose,  upon  those 
“twenty  thousand  Roman  youths” — rather  a  broken 
reed  to  trust  to  (remembering  what  those  young  gal¬ 
lants  were),  with  Caesar  against  him,  now  at  the  head 
of  his  legions  just  outside  the  gates  of  Rome.  He  him¬ 
self  seriously  contemplated  suicide,  and  consulted  his 
friends  as  to  the  propriety  of  such  a  step  in  the  gravest 
and  most  business-like  manner,  though,  with  our 
modern  notions  on  the  subject,  such  a  consultation  has 
more  of  the  ludicrous  than  the  sublime.  The  sensible 
and  practical  Atticus  convinced  him  that  such  a  solu¬ 
tion  of  his  difficulties  would  be  the  greatest  possible 
mistake — a  mistake,  moreover,  which  could  never  be 
rectified. 

But  almost  any  course  would  have  become  him  better 
than  that  which  he  chose.  Had  he  remained  and  faced 
Clodius  and  his  bravos  manfully — or  had  he  turned  his 
back  upon  Rome  forever,  and  shaken  the  dust  off  his 
feet  against  the  ungrateful  city,  and  become  a  noble 
pensioner  upon  Atticus  at  Buthrotum — he  would  have 
died  a  greater  man.  He  wandered  from  place  to  place, 


CICERO. 


51 


sheltered  by  friends  whose  unselfish  loyally  marks  their 
names  with  honor  in  that  false  and  evil  generation — 
Sica,  and  Flacc.us,  and  Plancius — bemoaning  himself 
like  a  woman, — “too  blinded  with  tears  to  write,” 
“loathing  the  light  of  day.”  Atticus  thought  he  was 
going  mad.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  dwell  upon  this  miser- 
able  weakness  of  a  great,  mind,  which  Cicero’s  most 
eager  eulogists  admit,  and  which  liis  detractors  have 
not  failed  to  make  the  most  of.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  find 
excuse  for  him,  but  we  will  give  him  all  the  benefit  of 
Mr.  Forsyth’s  defence: — 

“  Seldom  has  misfortune  so  crushed  a  noble  spirit,  and  never, 
perhaps,  has  the  ‘  bitter  bread  of  banishment  ’  seemed  more  bit¬ 
ter  to  any  one  than  to  him.  We  must  remember  that  the  love 
of  country  was  a  passion  with  the  ancients  to  a  degree  which  it 
is  now  difficult  to  realize,  and  exile  from  it,  even  for  a  time  waS 
felt  to  be  an  intolerable  evil.  The  nearest  approach  to  such  a 
feeling  was  perhaps  that  of  some  favorite  under  an  European 
monarchy,  when,  frowned  upon  by  his  sovereign,  he  was  hurled 
from  place  and  power,  and  banished  from  the  court.  The  change 
to  Cicero  was  indeed  tremendous.  Not  only  was  he  an  exile  from 
Rome,  the  scene  of  all  his  hopes,  his  glories,  his  triumphs,  but 
he  was  under  the  ban  of  an  outlaw.  If  found  within  a  certain 
distance  from  the  capital,  he  must  die,  and  it  was  death  to  any 
one  to  give  him  food  or  shelter.  His  property  was  destroyed 
his  family  was  penniless,  and  the  people  whom  he  had  so  faith 
fully  served  were  the  authors  of  his  ruin.  All  this  may  be  urged 
in  his  behalf,  but  still  it  would  have  been  only  consistent  with 
Roman  fortitude  to  have  shown  that  he  possessed  something  of 
the  spirit  of  the  fallen  archangel.”  * 

His  exile  lasted  nearly  a  year  and  a  half.  Long  be¬ 
fore  that  time  there  had  come  a  reaction  in  his  favor. 
The  new  consuls  were  well  disposed  towards  him; 
Clodius’s  insolence  had  already  disgusted  Pompey; 
Caesar  was  absent  with  his  legions  in  Gaul;  his  own 


*  Forsyth’s  Life  of  Cicero,  p.  190. 


52 


TILE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


friends,  who  had  all  along  been  active  in  his  favor 
(though  in  his  querulous  mood  he  accused  them  of 
apathy)  took  advantage  of  the  change,  his  generous 
rival  Hortensius  being  amongst  the  most  active;  and 
all  the  frantic  violence  of  Clodius  and  his  party  served 
only  to  delay  for  a  while  the  return  which  they  could 
not  prevent.  A  motion  for  his  recall  was  carried  at 
last  by  an  immense  majority. 

Cicero  had  one  remarkable  ally  on  that  occasion.  On 
one  of  the  days  when  the  Senate  was  known  to  be  dis¬ 
cussing  his  recall,  the  ‘Andromache’  of  Ennius  was 
being  played  in  the  theatre.  The  popular  actor  iEsop, 
whose  name  has  come  down  to  us  in  conjunction  with 
that  of  Roscius,  was  playing  the  principal  character. 
The  great  orator  had  been  his  pupil,  and  was  evidently 
regarded  by  him  as  a  personal  friend.  With  all  the 
force  of  his  consummate  art,  he  threw  into  Andro¬ 
mache’s  lament  for  her  absent  father  his  own  feelings 
for  Cicero.  The  words  in  the  part  were  strikingly  ap¬ 
propriate,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  insert  a  phrase  or 
two  of  his  own  when  he  came  to  speak  of  the  man 

“  Who  with  a  constant  mind  upheld  the  state, 

Stood  on  the  people’s  side  in  perilotis  times, 

Ne’er  recked  of  his  own  life,  nor  spared  himself.” 

So  significant  and  emphatic  were  his  tone  and  gesture 
as  he  addressed  himself  pointedly  to  his  Roman  audi¬ 
ence,  that  they  recalled  him,  and,  amid  a  storm  of 
plaudits,  made  him  repeat  the  passage.  He  added  to 
it  the  words — which  were  not  set  down  for  him — 

“  Best  of  all  friends  in  direst  strait  of  war!” 

and  the  applause  was  redoubled.  The  actor  drew 
courage  from  his  success.  When,  as  the  play  went  on, 
he  came  to  speak  the  words — 


CICERO. 


53 


“  And  you— you  let  him  live  a  banished  man — 

See  him  driven  forth  and  hunted  from  your  gates!” 

he  pointed  to  the  nobles,  knights,  and  commons,  as 
they  sat  in  their  respective  seats  in  the  crowded  rows 
before  him,  his  own  voice  broke  with  grief,  and  the 
tears  even  more  than  the  applause  of  the  whole  audi¬ 
ence  bore  witness  alike  to  their  feelings  towards  the 
exile,  and  the  dramatic  power  of  the  actor.  “  He 
pleaded  my  cause  before  the  Roman  people,”  says 
Cicero  (for  it  is  he  that  tells  the  story),  “  with  far  more 
•  weight  of  eloquence  than  I  could  have  pleaded  for  my¬ 
self.”*. 

He  had  been  visited  with  a  remarkable  dream,  while 
staying  with  one  of  his  friends  in  Italy,  during  the 
earlier  days  of  his  exile,  which  he  now  recalled  with 
some  interest.  He  tells  us  this  story  also  himself, 
though  he  puts  it  into  the  mouth  of  another  speaker, 
in  liis  dialogue  on  “Divination.”  If  few  were  so  fond 
of  introducing  personal  anecdotes  into  every  place 
where  he  could  find  room  for  them,  fewer  still  could 
tell  them  so  well. 

“I  had  lain  awake  a  great  part  of  the  night,  and  at 
last  towards  dawn  had  begun  to  sleep  soundly  and 
heavily.  I  had  given  orders  to  my  attendant  that,  in 
this  case,  though  we  had  to  start  that  very  morning, 
strict  silence  should  be  kept,  and  that  I  was  on  no  ac¬ 
count  to  be  disturbed;  when  about  seven  o’clock  I 
awoke,  and  told  him  my  dream.  I  thought  I  was  wan¬ 
dering  alone  in  some  solitary  place,  when  Caius  Marius 
appeared  to  me,  with  his  fasces  bound  with  laurel,  and 
asked  why  I  was  so  sad?  And  when  I  answered  that 
I  had  been  driven  from  my  country,  he  caught  my 


*  Defence  of  Sestius,  c.  56,  etc. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY, \ 


hand,  bade  me  be  of  good  cheer,  and  put  me  under  the 
guidance  of  his  own  lictor  to  lead  me  to  his  monument; 
there,  he  said,  I  should  find  my  deliverance.” 

So  indeed  it  had  turned  out.  The  temple  dedicated 
to  Honor  and  Virtue,  in  which  the  Senate  sat  when 
they  passed  the  first  resolution  of  Cicero’s  recall,  was 
known  as  the  “Monument  of  Marius.”  There  is  no 
need  to  doubt  the  perfect  good  faith  of  the  story 
which  he  tells,  and  it  may  be  set  down  as  one  of  the 
earliest  authenticated  instances  of  a  dream  coming  true. 
But  if  dreams  are  fashioned  out  of  our  waking  imagi¬ 
nations,  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  fortunes  of  his 
great  townsman  Marius,  and  the  scenes  in  the  Senate 
at  Rome,  were  continually  present  to  the  exile’s 
thoughts. 

His  return  was  a  triumphal  progress.  He  landed  at 
Brundusium  on  his  daughter’s  birthday.  She  had  only 
just  lost  her  husband  Piso,  who  had  gallantly  maintained 
her  father’s  cause  throughout,  but  she  was  the  first  to 
welcome  him  with  tears  of  joy  which  overmastered  her 
sorrow.  He  was  careful  to  lose  no  chance  of  making 
his  return  impressive.  He  took  his  way  to  Rome  with 
the  slow  march  of  a  conqueror.  The  journey  which 
Horace  made  easily  in  twelve  days,  occupied  Cicero 
twenty-four.  But  he  chose  not  the  shortest  but  the 
most  public  route,  through  Naples,  Capua,  Minturnae, 
Terracina,  and  Aricia. 

Let  him  tell  the  story  of  his  own  reception.  If  he 
tells  it  (as  he  does  more  than  once)  with  an  undis¬ 
guised  pride,  it  is  a  pride  with  which  it  is  impossible 
not  to  sympathize.  He  boasted  afterwards  that  he  had 
been  “  carried  back  to  Rome  on  the  shoulders  of  Italy;” 
and  Plutarch  says  it  was  a  boast  he  had  good  right  to 
make. 


CICERO. 


55 


“  Who  does  not  know  what  my  return  home  was 
like?  How  the  people  of  Brundusium  held  out  to  me, 
as  I  might  say,  the  right  hand  of  welcome  on  behalf  of 
all  my  native  land  ?  From  thence  to  Rome  my  progress 
was  like  a  march  of  all  Italy.  There  was  no  district,  no 
town,  corporation,  or  colony,  from  which  a  public  dep¬ 
utation  was  not  sent  to  congratulate  me.  Why  need 
I  speak  of  . my  arrival  at  each  place?  how  the  people 
crowded  the  streets  in  the  towns;  how  they  flocked 
in  from  the  country — fathers  of  families  with  wives 
and  children?  How  can  I  describe  those  days,  when 
all  kept  holiday,  as  though  it  were  some  high  festival 
of  the  immortal  gods,  in  joy  for  my  safe  return?  That 
single  day  was  to  me  like  immortality;  when  I  re¬ 
turned  to  my  own  city,  when  I  saw  the  Senate  and 
the  population  of  all  ranks  come  forth  to  greet  me, 
when  Rome  herself  looked  as  though  she  had  wrenched 
herself  from  her  foundations  to  rush  to  embrace  her 
preserver.  For  she  received  me  in  such  sort,  that  not 
onty  all  sexes,  ages,  and  callings,  men  and  women,  of 
every  rank  and  degree,  but  even  the  very  walls,  the 
houses,  the  temples,  seemed  to  share  the  universal  joy.” 

The  Senate  in  a  body  came  out  to  receive  him  on 
the  ’Appian  road;  a  gilded  chariot  waited  for  him  at 
the  city  gates;  the  lower  class  of  citizens  crowded  the 
steps  of  the  temples  to  see  him  as  he  passed ;  and  so  he 
rode,  escorted  by  troops  of  friends,  more  than  a  con¬ 
queror,  to  the  Capitol. 

His  exultation  was  naturally  as  intense  as  his  de¬ 
spair  had  been.  He  made  two  of  his  most  florid 
speeches  (if  indeed  they  be  his,  which  is  doubtful), 
one  in  the  Senate  and  another  to  the  people  assembled 
in  the  Forum,  in  which  he  congratulated  himself  on 
his  return,  and  Rome  on  having  regained  her  most 


56 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


illustrious  citizen.  It  is  a  curious  note  of  the  temper 
and  logical  capacities  of  the  mob,  in  all  ages  of  the 
world  alike,  that  within  a  few  hours  of  their  applaud 
ing  to  the  echo  this  speech  of  Cicero’s,  Clodius  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  exciting  them  to  a  serious  riot  by  appealing  to 
the  ruinous  price  of  corn  as  one  of  the  results  of  the  ex¬ 
ile’s  return. 

For  nearly  four  years  more,  though  unable  to  shake 
Cicero’s  recovered  position  in  the  state — for  he  was  now 
supported  by  Pompey — Clodius  and  his  partisans, 
backed  by  a  strong  force  of  trained  gladiators  in  their 
pay,  kept  Rome  in  a  state  of  anarchy  which  is  almost 
inexplicable.  It  was  more  than  suspected  that  Crassus, 
now  utterly  estranged  from  Pompey,  supplied  out  of 
his  enormous  wealth  the  means  of  keeping  on  foot  this 
lawless  agitation.  Elections  were  overawed,  meetings 
of  the  Senate  interrupted,'  assassinations  threatened 
and  attempted.  Already  men  began  to  look  to  mili¬ 
tary  rule,  and  to  think  a  good  cause  none  the  worse 
for  being  backed  by  “  strong  battalions.”  Things  were 
fast  tending  to  the  point  where  Pompey  and  Caesar, 
trusty  allies  as  yet  in  profession  and  appearance,  deadly 
rivals  at  heart,  hoped  to  step  in  with  their  veteran  le¬ 
gions.  Even. Cicero,  the  man  of  peace  and  constitution¬ 
al  statesman,  felt  comfort  in  the  thought  that  this  final 
argument  could  be  resorted  to  by  his  own  party.  But 
Clodius’s  mob-government,  at  any  rare,  was  to  be  put 
an  end  to  somewhat  suddenly.  Milo,  now  one  of  the 
candidates  for  the  consulship,  a  man  of  determined  and 
unscrupulous  character,  had  turned  his  own  weapons 
against  him,  and  maintained  an  opposition  patrol  of 
hired  gladiators  and  wild-beast  fighters.  The  Senate 
quite  approved,  if  they  did  not  openly  sanction,  this 
irregular  championship  of  their  order,  The  two  pap 


CICERO ; 


ties  walked  the  streets  of  Rome  like  the  Capulets  and 
Montagues  at  Verona;  and  it  was  said  that  Milo  had 
been  heard  to  swear  that  he  would  rid  the  city  of 
Clodius  if  he  ever  got  the  chance.  It  came  at  last,  in  a 
casual  meeting  on  the  Appian  road,  near  Bovillse.  A 
scuffle  began  between  their  retainers,  and  Clodius  was 
killed — his  friends  said,  murdered.  The  excitement  at 
Rome  was  intense;  the  dead  body  was  carried  and  laid 
publicly  on  the  Rostra.  Riots  ensued ;  Milo  was  obliged 
to  fly,  and  renounce  his  hopes  of  power;  and  the  Senate, 
intimidated,  named  Pompey — not  indeed  “Dictator,” 
for  the  name  had  become  almost  as  hateful  as  that  of 
King — but  sole  consul,  for  the  safety  of  the  state.  • 

Cicero  had  resumed  his  practice  as  an  advocate,  and 
was  now  called  upon  to  defend  Milo.  But  Pompey, 
either  from  some  private  grudge,  or  in  order  to  win 
favor  with  the  populace,  determined  that  Milo  should 
be  convicted.  The  jury  were  overawed  by  his  presence 
in  person  at  the  trial,  and  by  the  occupation  by  armed 
soldiers  of  all  the  avenues  of  the  court  under  color  of 
keeping  order.  It  was  really  as  great  an  outrage  upon 
the  free  administration  of  justice  as  the  presence  of  a 
regiment  of  soldiers  at  the  entrance  to  Westminster 
Hall  would  be  at  a  modern  trial  for  high  treason  or 
sedition.  Cicero  affected  to  see  in  Pompey’s  legionaries 
nothing  more  than  the  maintainers  of  the  peace  of  the 
city.  But  he  knew  better;  and  the  fine  passage  in  the 
opening  of  his  speech  for  the  defense,  as  it  has  come 
down  to  us,  is  at  once  a  magnificent  piece  of  irony 
and  a  vindication  of  the  rights  of  counsel. 

“Although  I  am  conscious,  gentlemen,  that  it  is  a 
disgrace  to  me  to  show  fear  when  I  stand  here  to  plead 
in  behalf  of  one  of  the  bravest  of  men; — and  espe¬ 
cially  does  such  weakness  ill  become  me,  that  when 


58 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Milo  himself  is  far  more  anxious  about  the  safety  of 
the  state  than  about  his  own,  I  should  be  unable  to 
bring  to  his  defence  the  like  magnanimous  spirit; — 
yet  this  strange  scene  and  strangely  constituted  court 
does  terrify  my  eyes,  for,  turn  them  where  I  will,  I 
look  in  vain  for  the  ancient  customs  of  the  Forum, 
and  the  old  style  of  public  trials.  For  your  tribunal 
to-day  is  girt  with  no  such  audience  as  was  wont ;  this 
is  no  ordinary  crowd  that  hems  us  in.  Yon  guards 
whom  you  see  on  duty  in  front  of  all  the  temples, 
though  set  to  prevent  violence,  yet  still  do  a  sort  of  vio¬ 
lence  to  the  pleader:  since  in  the  Forum  and  the  court 
of  justice,  though  the  military  force  which  surrounds 
us  be  wholesome  and  needful,  yet  we  cannot  even  be 
thus  freed  from  apprehension  without  looking  with 
some  apprehension  on  the  means.  And  if  I  thought 
they  were  set  there  in  hostile  array  against  Milo,  I 
would  yield  to  circumstances,  gentlemen,  and  feel  there 
was  no  room  for  the  pleader  amid  such  a  display  of 
weapons.  But  I  am  encouraged  by  the  advice  of  a  man 
of  great  wisdom  and  justice — of  Pompey,  who  surely 
would  not  think  it  compatible  with  that  justice,  after 
committing  a  prisoner  to  the  verdict  of  a  jury,  then  to 
hand  him  over  to  the  swords  of  his  soldiers;  nor  con¬ 
sonant  with  his  wisdom  to  arm  the  violent  passions  of  a 
mob  with  the  authority  of  the  state.  Therefore  those 
weapons,  those  officers  and  men,  proclaim  to  us  not 
peril  but  protection ;  they  encourage  us  to  be  not  only 
undisturbed  but  confident;  the}’  promise  me  not  only 
support  in  pleading  for  the  defence,  but  silence  for  it  to 
be  listened  to.  As  to  the  rest  of  the  audience,  so  far  as 
it  is  composed  of  peaceful  citizens,  all,  I  know,  are  on 
our  side ;  nor  is  there  any  single  man  among  all  those 
crowds  whom  you  see  occupying  ever}'  point  from 


CICERO. 


59 


which  a  glimpse  of  this  court  can  be  gained,  looking  on 
in  anxious  expectation  of  the  result  of  this  trial,  who, 
while  he  approves  the  boldness  of  the  defendant,  does 
not  also  feel  that  the  fate  of  himself,  his  children,  and 
his  country,  hangs  upon  the  issue  of  to-day.” 

After  an  elaborate  argument  to  prove  that  the  slaying 
of  Clodius  by  Milo  was  in  self-defense,  or,  at  the  worst, 
that  it  wras  a  fate  which  he  well  deserved  as  a  public 
enemy,  he  closes  his  speech  with  a  peroration,  the  pa¬ 
thos  of  which  has  always  been  admired : 

“  I  would  it  had  been  the  will  of  heaven — if  I  may 
say  so  with  all  reverence  for  my  country,  for  I  fear  lest 
my  duty  to  my  client  may  make  me  say  what  is  disloyal 
towards  her — I  would  that  Publius  Clodius  were  not 
only  alive,  but  that  he  were  praetor,  consul,  dictator 
even,  before  my  eyes  had  seen  this  sight!  But  what 
says  Milo?  He  speaks  like  a  brave  man,  and  a  man 
whom  it  is  your  duty  to  protect — ‘Not  so — by  no 
means,’  says  he.  ‘  Clodius  has  met  the  doom  he  well 
deserved:  I  am  ready,  if  it  must  be  so,  to  meet  that 
which  I  do  not  deserve.’  .  .  .  But  I  must  stop;  I  can 
no  longer  speak  for  tears;  and  tears  are  an  argument 
which  he  would  scorn  for  his  defence.  I  entreat  you,  I 
adjure  you,  ye  who  sit  here  in  judgment,  that  in  your 
verdict  you  dare  to  give  utterance  to  what  I  know  you 
feel.” 

But  the  appeal  was  in  vain,  or  rather,  as  far  as  we 
can  ascertain,  was  never  made, — at  least  in  such  power¬ 
ful  terms  as  those  in  which  we  read  it.  The  great 
advocate  was  wholly  unmanned  by  the  scene  before 
him,  grew  nervous,  and  broke  down  utterly  in  his 
speech  for  the  defence.  This  presence  of  a  military 
force  under  the  orders  of  Pompey — the  man  in  whom 
he  saw,  as  he  hoped,  the  good  genius  of  Rome— over* 


60 


TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


awed  and  disturbed  him.  The  speech  which  we  read  is 
almost  certainly  not  that  which  lie  delivered,  hut  as  in 
the  previous  case  of  Veries,  the  finished  and  elaborate 
composition  of  his  calmer  hours.  Milo  was  convicted 
by  a  large  majority;  in  fact,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
but  that  he  was  legally  guilty,  however  political  expedi¬ 
ency  might  in  the  eyes  of  Cicero  and  his  party,  have 
justified  his  deed.  Cato  sat  on  the  jury,  and  did  all  he 
could  to  insure  an  acquittal,  showing  openly  his  voting- 
paper  to  his  fellow-jurors,  with  that  scorn  of  the 
“  liberty  of  silence”  which  he  shared  with  Cicero. 

Milo  escaped  any  worse  penalty  by  at  once  going  into 
voluntary  banishment  at  Marseilles.  But  he  showed 
more  practical  philosophy  than  his  advocate;  for  when 
he  read  the  speech  in  his  exile,  he  is  said  to  have  de¬ 
clared  that  “it  was  fortunate  for  him  it  was  not  spoken, 
or  he  should  never  have  known  the  flavor  of  the  red 
mullet  of  Marseilles.” 

The  removal  of  Clodius  was  a  deliverance  upon 
which  Cicero  never  ceased  to  congratulate  himself. 
That  “battle  of  Bovillse,”  as  he  terms  it,  became  an 
era  in  his  mental  records  of  only  less  significance  than 
his  consulship.  His  own  public  life  continued  to  be 
honorable  and  successful.  He  w^as  elected  into  the 
College  of  Augurs,  an  honor  which  he  had  long  coveted; 
and  he  was  appointed  to  the  government  of  Cilicia. 
This  latter  was  a  greatness  literally  “thrust  upon  him,” 
and  which  he  would  gladly  have  declined,  for  it  took 
him  away  in  these  eventful  days  from  his  beloved 
Rome;  and  to  these  grand  opportunities  for  enriching 
himself  he  was,  as  has  been  said,  honorably  indifferent. 
The  appointment  to  a  distant  province  was,  in  fact,  to 
man  like  Cicero,  little  better  than  an  honorable  form  of 
exile  j  it  was  like  conferring  on  a  man  who  had  been. 


CICERO. 


61 


and  might  hope  one  day  to  be  again,  Prime  Minister  of 
England,  the  governor-generalship  of  Bombay. 

One  consolation  he  found  on  reaching  his  new  gov¬ 
ernment — that  even  in  the  farthest  wilds  of  Cilicia 
there  were  people  who  had  heard  of  “the  consul  who 
saved  Rome.”  And  again  the  astonished  provincials 
marveled  at  a  governor  who  looked  upon  them  as 
having  rights  of  their  own,  and  neither  robbed  nor  ill- 
used  them.  He  made  a  little  war,  too,  upon  some 
troublesome  liill-tribes  (intrusting  the  command  chiefly 
to  his  brother  Quintus,  who  had  served  with  distinction 
under  Caesar  in  Gaul),  and  gained  a  victory  which  his 
legions  thought  of  sufficient  importance  to  salute  him 
with  the  honored  title  of  “  imperator.”  Such  military 
honors  are  especially  flattering  to  men  who,  like  Cicero, 
are  naturally  and  essentially  civilians;  and  to  Cicero’s 
vanity  they  were  doubly  delightful.  Unluckily  they 
led  him  to  entertain  hopes  of  the  further  glory  of  a 
triumph;  and  this,  but  for  the  revolution  which  fol¬ 
lowed,  he  might  possibly  have  obtained.  As  it  was, 
the  only  result  was  his  parading  about  with  him  every¬ 
where,  from  town  to  town,  for  months  after  his  return, 
the  lictors  with  laureled  fasces,  which  betokened  that  a 
triumph  was  claimed — a  pompous  incumbrance,  which 
became,  as  he  confessed,  a  grand  subject  for  evil-dis¬ 
posed  jesters,  and  a  considerable  inconvenionce  to  him¬ 
self. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CICERO  AND  CAESAR. 

Tiie  future  master  of  Rome  was  now  coming  home, 
after  nearly  ten  years’  absence,  at  the  head  of  the  victQ- 


62 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


rious  legions  with  which  he  had  struck  terror  into  the 
Germans,  overrun  all  Spain,  left  his  mark  upon  Britain, 
and  “pacified”  Gaul.  But  Cicero,  in  common  with 
most  of  the  senatorial  party,  failed  to  see  in  Julius  Cae¬ 
sar  the  great  man  that  he  was.  He  hesitated  a  little — 
Caesar  would  gladly  have  had  his  support,  and  made 
him  fair  offers;  but  when  the  Rubicon  was  crossed,  he 
threw  in  his  lot  with  Pompey.  He  was  certainly  influ¬ 
enced  in  part  by  personal  attachment:  Pompey  seems 
to  have  exercised  a  degree  of  fascination  over  his  weak¬ 
ness.  He  knew  Pompey’s  indecision  of  character,  and 
confessed  that  Caesar  was  “  a  prodigy  of  energy;”  but 
though  the  former  showed  little  liking  for  him,  he  clung 
to  him  nevertheless.  He  foreboded  that,  let  the  contest 
end  which  way  it  would,  “the  result  would  certainly 
be  a  despotism.”  He  foresaw  that  Pompey’s  real  de¬ 
signs  were  as  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  Rome  as  any 
of  which  Caesar  could  be  suspected.  “ Sullaiurit  ani¬ 
mus ,”  he  says  of  him  in  one  of  his  letters,  coining  a 
verb  to  put  his  idea  strongly — “he  wants  to  be  like 
Sulla.”  And  it  was  no  more  than  the  truth.  He  found 
out  afterwards,  as  he  tells  Atticus,  that  proscription- 
lists  of  all  Caesar’s  adherents  had  been  prepared  by  Pom 
pey  and  his  partisans,  and  that  his  old  friend’s  name 
figured  as  one  of  the  victims.  Only  this  makes  it  possi¬ 
ble  to  forgive  him  for  the  little  feeling  that  he  showed 
when  he  heard  of  Pompey’s  own  miserable  end. 

Cicero’s  conduct  and  motives  at  this  eventful  crisis 
have  been  discussed  over  and  over  again.  It  may  be 
questioned  whether  at  this  date  we  are  in  any  position 
to  pass  more  than  a  very  cautious  and  general  judgment 
upon  them.  We  want  all  the  “  state  papers”  and  polit¬ 
ical  correspondence  of  the  day — not  Cicero’s  letters  only, 
but  those  of  Caesar  and  Pompey  and  Bentulus,  and 


CICERO. 


much  information  besides  that  was  never  trusted  to  pen 
or  paper — in  order  to  lay  down  with  any  accuracy  the 
course  which  a  really  unselfish  patriot  could  have  taken. 
But  there  seems  little  reason  to  accuse  Cicero  of  double¬ 
dealing  or  trimming  in  the  worst  sense.  His  policy  was 
unquestionably,  from  first  to  last,  a  policy  of  expedients. 
But  expediency  is,  and  must  be  more  or  less,  the  watch¬ 
word  of  a  statesman.  If  he  would  practically  serve  his 
country,  he  must  do  to  some  extent  what  Cicero  pro¬ 
fessed  to  do— make  friends  with  those  in  power.  “Sic 
vivitur” — “So  goes  the  world;”  “ Tempori  serviendum 
esC — “We  must  bend  to  circumstances” — these  are  not 
the  noblest  mottoes,  but  they  are  acted  upon  continually 
by  the  most  respectable  men  in  public  and  private  life, 
who  do  not  open  their  hearts  to  their  friends  so  unre¬ 
servedly  as  Cicero  does  to  his  friend  Atticus.  It  seemed 
to  him  a  choice  between  Pompey  and  Csesar ;  and  he 
probably  hoped  to  be  able  so  far  to  influence  the  former 
as  to  preserve  some  shadow  of  a  constitution  for  Borne. 
What  he  saw  in  those  “dregs  of  a  Republic,” *  as  he 
himself  calls  it,  that  was  worth  preserving; — how  any 
honest  despotism  could  seem  to  him  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  that  prostituted  liberty, — this  is  harder  to  compre¬ 
hend.  The  remark  of  Abeken  seems  to  go  very  near  the 
truth — “  His  devotion  to  the  Commonwealth  was 
grounded  not  so  much  upon  his  conviction  of  its  actual 
merits,  as  of  its  fitness  for  the  display  of  his  own 
abilities.” 

But  that  commonwealth  was  past  saving  even  in 
name.  Within  two  months  of  his  having  been  de¬ 
clared  a  public  enemy,  all  Italy  was  at  Csesar’s  feet. 
Before  another  year  was  past,  the  battle  of  Pliarsalia 


*  “  Faex  Romuli.” 


64 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


liad  been  fought,  and  the  great  Pompey  lay  a  headless 
corpse  on  the  sea-shore  in  Egypt.  It  was  suggested  to 
Cicero,  who  had  hitherto  remained  constant  to  the  for¬ 
tunes  of  his  party,  and  was  then  in  their  camp  at  Dyr- 
rachium,  that  he  should  take  the  chief  command,  but  he 
had  the  sense  to  decline;  and  though  men  called  him 
“  traitor,”  and  drew  their  swords  upon  him,  he  with¬ 
drew  from  a  cause  which  he  saw  was  lost,  and  returned 
to  Italy,  though  not  to  Rome. 

The  meeting  between  him  and  Cmsar,  which  came  at 
last,  set  at  rest  any  personal  apprehensions  from  that 
quarter.  Cicero  does  not  appear  to  have  made  any  dis¬ 
honorable  submission,  and  the  conqueror’s  behavior 
was  nobly  forgetful  of  the  past.  They  gradually  be¬ 
came  on  almost  friendly  terms.  The  orator  paid  the 
dictator  compliments  in  the  Senate,  and  found  that,  in 
private  society,  his  favorite  jokes  were  repeated  to  the 
great  man,  and  were  highly  appreciated.  With  such 
little  successes  he  was  obliged  now  to  be  content.  He 
had  again  taken  up  his  residence  in  Rome ;  but  his  poli¬ 
tical  occupation  was  gone,  and  his  active  mind  had 
leisure  to  employ  itself  in  some  of  his  literary  works. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  blow  fell  upon  him  which 
prostrated  him  for  the  time,  as  his  exile  had  done,  and 
under  which  he  claims  our  far  more  natural  sj^mpatliy. 
His  dear  daughter  Tullia — again  married,  but  unhappily, 
and  just  divorced — died  at  his  Tusculan  villa.  Their 
loving  intercourse  had  undergone  no  change  from  her 
childhood,  and  his  grief  was  for  a  while  inconsolable. 
He  shut  himself  up  for  thirty  days.  The  letters  of  con¬ 
dolence  from  well-meaning  friends  were  to  him — as  they 
so  often  are — as  the  speeches  of  the  three  comforters  to 
Job.  He  turned  in  vain,  as  he  pathetically  says,  to 
philosophy  for  consolation. 


CICERO. 


65 


It  was  at  this  time  that  lie  wrote  two  of  his  philo¬ 
sophical  treatises,  known  to  us  as  “  The  True  Ends  of 
Life,”*  and  the  “  Tusculan  Disputations,”  of  which 
more  will  be  said  hereafter.  In  this  latter,  wliioh  he 
named  from  his  favorite  country  house,  he  addressed 
himself  to  the  subjects  which  suited  best  with  his  own 
sorrowful  mood  under  his  recent  bereavement.  How 
men  might  learn  to  shake  off  the  terrors  of  death — nay, 
to  look  upon  it  rather  as  a  release  from  pain  and  evil ; 
how  pain,  mental  and  bodily,  may  best  be  borne;  how 
we  may  moderate  our  passions;  and,  lastly,  whether  the 
practice  of  virtue  be  not  all-sufficient  for  our  happiness. 

A  philosopher  does  not  always  find  in  himself  a  ready 
pupil.  It  was  hardly  so  in  Cicero’s  case.  His  argu¬ 
ments  were  incontrovertible  ;  but  he  found  them  fail 
him  sadly  in  their  practical  application  to  life.  He 
never  could  shake  off  from  himself  that  dread  of  death 
which  he  felt  in  a  degree  unusually  vivid  for  a  Roman. 
He  sought  his  own  happiness  afterwards,  as  he  had  done 
before,  rather  in  the  exciting  struggle  of  public  life  than 
in  the  special  cultivation  of  any  form  of  virtue;  and  he 
did  not  even  find  the  remedy  for  his  present  domestic 
sorrow  in  any  of  those  general  moral  reflections  which 
%  philosophy,  Christian  as  well  as  pagan,  is  so  ready  to 
produce  upon  such  occasions;  which  are  all  so  undeni¬ 
able,  and  all  so  utterly  unendurable  to  the  mourner. 

Cicero  found  his  consolation,  or  that  diversion  of 
thought  which  so  mercifully  serves  the  purpose  of  con¬ 
solation,  where  most  men  of  active  minds  like  his  seek 
for  it  and  find  it — in  hard  work.  The  literary  effort  of 
writing  and  completing  the  works  which  have  been  just 
mentioned  probably  did  more  to  soothe  his  mind  than 


*  “  De  Finibus  Bonorum  et  Malorum”— a  title  hard  to  translate. 


66 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


all  the  arguments  which  they  contained.  He  resumed 
his  practice  as  an  advocate  so  far  as  to  plead  a  cause  be¬ 
fore  Csesar,  now  ruling  as  Dictator  at  Rome — the  last 
cause,  as  events  happened,  that  he  was  ever  to  plead. 
It  was  a  cause  of  no  great  importance — a  defence  of 
Deiotarus,  titulary  king  of  Armenia,  who  was  accused 
of  having  entertained  designs  against  the  life  of  Csesar 
while  entertaining  him  as  a  guest  in  his  palace.  The 
Dictator  reserved  his  judgment  until  he  should  have 
made  his  campaign  against  the  Parthians.  That  more 
convenient  season  never  came:  for  before  the  spring 
campaign  could  open,  the  fatal  “Ides  of  March”  cut 
short  Caesar’s  triumphs  and  his  life. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

It  remained  for  Cicero  yet  to  take  a  part  in  one  more 
great  national  struggle — the  last  for  Rome  and  for  him¬ 
self.  No  doubt  there  was  some  grandeur  in  the  cause 
which  he  once  more  so  vigorously  espoused — the  re¬ 
covery  of  the  liberties  of  Rome.  But  all  the  thunders 
of  Cicero’s  eloquence,  and  all  the  admiration  of  modern 
historians  and  poets,  fail  to  enlist  our  hearty  sympathies 
with  the  assassins  of  Csesar.  That  “consecration  of  the 
dagger”  to  the  cause  of  liberty  has  been  the  fruitful 
parent  of  too  much  evil  ever  since  to  make  its  use  any¬ 
thing  but  hateful.  That  Cicero  was  among  the  actual 
conspirators  is  probably  not  true,  though  his  enemies 
strongly  asserted  it.  But  at  least  he  gloried  in  the  deed 
when  done,  and  was  eager  to  claim  all  the  honors  of  a 
tyrannicide.  Nay,  he  went  farther  than  the  actual  con- 


CICERO. 


67 


spirators,  in  words  at  least;  it  is  curious  to  find  him  so 
careful  to  disclaim  complicity  in  the  act.  “Would  that 
you  had  invited  me  to  that  banquet  on  the  Ides  of 
March!  there  would  then  have  been  no  leavings  from 
the  feast,” — he  writes  to  Cassius.  He  would  have  had 
their  daggers  turned  on  Antony,  at  all  events,  as  well  as 
on  Caesar.  He  wishes  that  ‘  ‘  the  gods  may  damn  Caesar 
after  he  is  dead;”  professing  on  this  occasion  a  belief  in 
a  future  retribution,  on  which  at  other  times  he  was 
sceptical.  It  is  but  right  to  remember  all  this,  when 
the  popular  tide  turned,  and  he  himself  came  to  be 
denounced  to  political  vengeance.  The  levity  with 
which  he  continually  speaks  of  the  assassination  of 
Caesar — a  man  who  had  never  treated  him ,  at  any  rate, 
with  anything  but  a  noble  forbearance — is  a  blot  on 
Cicero’s  character  which  his  warmest  apologists  ad¬ 
mit. 

The  bloody  deed  in  the  Capitol  was  done — a  deed 
which  was  to  turn  out  almost  what  Goethe  called  it — 
“the  most  absurd  that  ever  was  committed.”  The 
great  Dictator  who  lay  there  alone,  a  “  bleeding  piece 
of  earth,”  deserted  by  the  very  men  who  had  sought  of 
late  to  crown  him,  was  perhaps  Rome’s  fittest  master; 
certainly  not  the  worst  of  the  many  with  whom  a  per¬ 
sonal  ambition  took  the  place  of  principle.  Three 
slaves  took  up  the  dead  body  of  their  master,  and  carried 
it  home  to  his  house.  Poor  wretches!  they  knew  noth¬ 
ing  about  liberty  or  the  constitution ;  they  had  little  to 
hope,  and  probably  little  to  fear;  they  had  only  a  hum¬ 
ble  duty  to  do,  and  did  it.  But  when  we  read  of  them, 
and  of  that  freedman  who,  not  long  before,  sat  by  the 
dead  body  of  Pompey  till  he  could  scrape  together 
wreck  from  the  shore  to  light  some  sort  of  poor  funeral- 
pile,  we  return  with  a  shudder  of  disgust  to  those  ‘  ‘  noble 


68 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Romans”  who  occupy  at  this  time  the  foreground  of 
history. 

Caesar  had  been  removed,  hut  it  is  plain  that  Brutus 
and  Cassius  and  their  party  had  neither  the  ability 
nor  the  energy  to  make  any  real  use  of  their  bloody 
triumph.  Cicero  soon  lost  all  hope  of  seeing  in  them 
the  liberators  of  his  country,  or  of  being  able  to  guide 
himself  the  revolution  which  he  hoped  he  had  seen 
begun.  “We  have  been  freed,”  he  writes  to  Atticus, 
“  but  we  are  not  free.”  “  We  have  struck  down  the 
tyrant,  but  the  tyranny  survives.”  Antony,  in  fact,  had 
taken  the  place  of  Caesar  as  master  of  Rome — a  change 
in  all  respects  for  the  worse.  He  had  surrounded 
himself  with  guards;  had  obtained  authority  from  the 
Senate  to  carry  out  all  decrees  and  orders  left  by  the 
late  Dictator;  and  when  he  could  not  find,  among 
Caesar’s  memoranda,  materials  to  serve  his  purpose,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  forge  them.  Cicero  had  no  power, 
and  might  be  in  personal  danger,  for  Antony  knew  his 
sentiments  as  to  state  matters  generally,  and  more  par¬ 
ticularly  towards  himself.  Rome  was  no  longer  any 
place  for  him,  and  he  soon  left  it — this  time  a  volun¬ 
tary  exile.  He  wandered  from  place  to  place,  and  tried 
as  before  to  find  interest  and  consolation  in  philosophy. 
It  was  now  that  he  wrote  his  charming  essays  on 
“ Friendship”  and  on  “Old  Age,”  and  completed  his 
work  “  On  the  Nature  of  the  Gods,”  and  that  on  “  Di¬ 
vination.”  His  treatise  “De  Officiis”  (a  kind  of  pagan 
“  Whole  Duty  of  Man”)  is  also  of  this  date,  as  well  as 
some  smaller  philosophical  works  which  have  been  lost. 
He  professed  himself  hopeless  of  his  country’s  future, 
and  disgusted  with  political  life,  and  spoke  of  going  to 
end  his  days  at  Athens. 

But,  as  before  and  always,  his  heart  was  in  the  FQrum 


CICERO . 


69 


at  Rome.  Political  life  was  really  the  only  atmosphere 
in  which  he  felt  himself  breathe  vigorously.  Unques¬ 
tionably  he  had  also  an  earnest  patriotism,  which 
would  have  drawn  him  back  to  his  country’s  side  at 
any  time  when  he  believed  she  had  need  of  his  help. 
He  was  told  that  he  was  needed  there  now;  that  there 
was  a  prospect  of  matters  going  better  for  the  cause  of 
liberty;  that  Antony  was  coming  to  terms  of  some  kind 
with  the  party  of  Brutus — and  he  returned. 

For  a  short  while  these  latter  days  brought  with  them 
a  gleam  of  triumph  almost  as  bright  as  that  which  had 

marked  the  overthrow  of  Catiline’s  conspiracy.  Again, 

■ 

on  his  arrival  at  Rome,  crowds  rushed  to  meet  him 
with  compliments  and  congratulations,  as  they  had 
done  some  thirteen  years  before.  And  in  so  far  as  his 
last  days  were  spent  in  resisting  to  the  utmost  the 
basest  of  all  Rome’s  bad  men,  they  were  to  him  greater 
than  any  triumph.  Thenceforth  it  was  a  fight  to  the 
death  between  him  and  Antony;  so  long  as  Antony 
lived  there  could  be  no  liberty  for  Rome.  Cicero  left  it 
to  his  enemy  to  make  the  first  attack.  It  soon  came. 
Two  days  after  his  return,  Antony  spoke  vehemently  in 
the  Senate  against  him,  on  the  occasion  of  moving  a 
resolution  to  the  effect  that  divine  honors  should  be  paid 
to  Caesar.  Cicero  had  purposely  stayed  away,  pleading 
fatigue  after  his  journey ;  really,  because  such  a  propo¬ 
sition  was  odious  to  him.  Antony  denounced  him  as  a 
coward  and  a  traitor,  and  threatened  to  send  men  to 
pull  down  his  house  about  his  head — that  house  which 
had  once  before  been  pulled  down,  and  rebuilt  for  him 
by  his  remorseful  fellow-citizens.  Cicero  went  down  to 
the  Senate  the  following  day,  and  there  delivered  a 
well-prepared  speech,  the  first  of  those  fourteen  which 
are  known  to  us  as  his  “  Philippics” — a  name  which  he 


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seems  first  to  have  given  to  them  in  jest,  in  remembrance 
of  those  which  his  favorite  model,  Demosthenes,  had  de¬ 
livered  at  Athens  against  Philip  of  Macedon.  He  de¬ 
fended  his  own  conduct,  reviewed  in  strong  but  moder¬ 
ate  terms  the  whole  policy  of  Antony,  and  warned 
him — still  ostensibly  as  a  friend — against  the  fate  of 
Caesar.  The  speaker  was  notunconscious  what  his  own 
might  possibly  be. 

“I  have  already,  senators,  reaped  fruit  enough  from 
my  return  home,  in  that  I  have  had  the  opportunity  to 
speak  words  which,  whatever  may  betide,  will  remain 
in  evidence  of  my  constancy  in  my  duty,  and  you  have 
listened  to  me  with  much  kindness  and  attention.  And 
this  privilege  I  will  use  so  often  as  I  may  without  peril 
to  you  and  to  myself;  when  I  cannot  I  will  be  careful 
of  myself,  not  so  much  for  my  own  sake  as  for  the  sake 
of  my  country.  For  me,  the  life  that  I  have  lived 
seems  already  wellnigh  long  enough,  whether  I  look  at 
my  years  or  my  honors;  what  little  span  may  yet  be 
added  to  it  should  be  your  gain  and  the  state’s  far  mor& 
than  my  own.” 

Aiftony  was  not  in  the  house  when  Cicero  spoke;  he 
had  gone  down  to  his  villa  at  Tibur.  There  he  re¬ 
mained  for  a  fortnight,  brooding  over  his  reply — taking 
lessons,  it  was  said,  from  professors  in  the  art  of  rhet¬ 
orical  self-defence.  At  last  he  came  to  Rome  and  an¬ 
swered  his  opponent.  His  speech  has  not  reached  us; 
but  we  know  that  it  contained  the  old  charges  of  having 
put  Roman  citizens  to  death  without  trial,  in  the  case  of 
the  abettors  of  Catiline,  and  of  having  instigated  Milo 
to  the  assassination  of  Clodius.  Antony  added  a  new 
charge — that  of  complicity  with  the  murderers  of 
Csesar.  Above  all,  he  laughed  at  Cicero’s  old  attempts 
as  a  poet ;  a  mode  of  attack  which,  if  not  so  alarming, 


CICERO. 


71 


was  at  least  as  irritating  as  the  rest.  Cicero  was  not 
present — he  dreaded  personal  violence;  for  Antony, 
like  Pompey  at  the  trial  of  Milo,  had  planted  an  armed 
guard  of  his  own  men  outside  and  inside  the  Senate- 
house.  Before  Cicero  had  nerved  himself  to  reply, 
Antony  had  left  Rome  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his 
legions,  and  the  two  never  met  again. 

The  reply,  when  it  came,  was  the  terrible  second 
Philippic;  never  spoken,  however,  but  only  handed 
about  in  manuscript  to  admiring  friends.  There  is  little 
doubt,  as  Mr.  Long  observes,  that  Antony  had  also 
some  friend  kind  enough  to  send  him  a  copy;  and  if 
we  may  trust  the  Roman  poet  Juvenal,  who  is  at 
least  as  likely  to  have  been  well-informed  upon  the 
subject  as  any  modern  historian,  this  composition 
•eventually  cost  the  orator  his  life.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  understand  the  bitter  vindictiveness  of  Antony. 
Cicero  had  been  not  merely  a  political  opponent;  he 
had  attacked  his  private  character  (which  presented 
abundant  grounds  for  such  attack)  with  all  the  venom 
of  his  eloquence.  He  had  said,  indeed,  in  the  first  of 
these  powerful  orations,  that  he  had  never  taken  this 
line. 

“If  I  have  abused  his  private  life  and  character,  I 
have  no  right  to  complain  if  he  is  my  enemy;  but  if  I 
have  only  followed  my  usual  custom,  which  I  have  ever 
maintained  in  public  life — I  mean,  if  I  have  only  spoken 
my  opinion  on  public  questions  freely — then,  in  the 
first  place,  I  protest  against  his  being  angry  with  me  at 
all:  or,  if  this  be  too  much  to  expect,  I  demand  that 
he  should  be  angry  with  me  only  as  with  a  fellow-citi¬ 
zen.” 

If  there  had  been  any  sort  of  reticence  on  this  point 
hitherto  on  the  part  of  Cicero,  he  made  up  for  it  in  this 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


72 

second  speech.  Nothing  can  equal  its  bitter  personal¬ 
ity,  except  perhaps  its  rhetorical  power.  He  begins  the 

attack  by  declaring  that  he  will  not  tell  all  he  knows - 

“in  order  that,  if  we  have  to  do  battle  again  hereafter, 
I  may  come  always  fresh-armed  to  the  attack;  an 
advantage  which  the  multiplicity  of  that  man’s  crimes 
and  vices  gives  me  in  large  measure.”  Then  he  pro¬ 
ceeds  : — 

“Would  you  like  us,  then,  to  examine  into  your 
course  of  life  from  boyhood?  I  conclude  you  would. 
Do  you  remember  that  before  you  put  on  the  robe  of 
manhood,  you  were  a  bankrupt?  That  was  my  father’s 
fault,  you  will  say.  I  grant  it — it  is  a  defence  that 
speaks  volumes  for  your  feelings  as  a  son.  It  was  your 
own  shamelessness,  however,  that  made  you  take  your 
seat  in  the  stalls  of  honorable  knights,  whereas  by  law 
there  is  a  fixed  place  for  bankrupts,  even  when  they 
have  become  so  by  fortune’s  fault,  and  not  their  own. 
You  put  on  the  robe  which  was  to  mark  your  manhood 
— on  your  person  it  became  the  flaunting  gear  of  a  har¬ 
lot.” 

It  is  not  desirable  to  follow  the  orator  through  some 
of  his  accusations;  when  he  had  to  lash  a  man  whom 
he  held  to  be  a  criminal,  he  did  not  much  care  where  or 
how  he  struck.  He  even  breaks  off  himself — after  say¬ 
ing  a  good  deal. 

“  There  are  some  things,  which  even  a  decent  enemy 
hesitates  to  speak  of.  .  .  .  Mark,  then,  his  subsequent 
course  of  life,  which  I  will  trace  as  rapidly  as  I  can. 
For  though  these  things  are  better  known  to  you  than 
even  to  me,- yet  I  ask  you  to  hear  me  with  attention — as 
indeed  you  do;  for  it  is  right  that  in  such  cases  men’s 
feelings  should  be  roused  not  merely  by  the  knowledge 
of  the  facts,  but  by  calling  them  back  to  their  remem- 


CICERO. 


73 


brance;  though  we  must  dash  at  once,  I  believe,  into 
the  middle  of  his  history,  lest  we  should  be  too  long  in 
getting  to  the  end.” 

The  peroration  is  noble  and  dignified,  in  the  orator’s 
best  style.  He  still  supposes  himself  addressing  his  en¬ 
emy.  He  has  warned  Antony  that  Caesar’s  fate  may  be 
his:  and  he  is  not  unconscious  of  the  peril  in  which  his 
own  life  may  stand. 

“  But  do  you  look  to  yourself — I  will  tell  you  how  it 
stands  with  me.  I  defended  the  Commonwealth  when 
I  was  young — I  will  not  desert  it  now  I  am  old.  I  de¬ 
spised  the  swords  of  Catiline — I  am  not  likely  to  trem¬ 
ble  before  yours.  Nay.  I  shall  lay  my  life  down  gladly 
if  the  liberty  of  Rome  can  be  secured  by  my  death,  so 
that  this  suffering  nation  may  at  last  bring  to  the  birth 
that  which  it  has  long  been  breeding.*  If,  twenty 
years  ago,  I  declared  in  this  house  that  death  could 
never  be  said  to  have  come  before  its  time  to  a  man  who 
had  been  consul  of  Rome,  with  how  much  more  truth, 
at  my  age,  may  I  say  it  now!  To  me,  indeed,  gentle¬ 
men  of  the  Senate,  death  may  well  be  a  thing  to  be  even 
desired,  when  I  have  done  what  I  have  done  and  reaped 
the  honors  I  have  reaped.  Only  two  wishes  I  have — 
the  one,  that  at  my  death  I  may  leave  the  Roman  peo¬ 
ple  free — the  immortal  gods  can  give  me  no  greater  boon 
than  this;  the  other,  that  every  citizen  may  meet  with 
such  reward  as  his  conduct  towards  the  state  may  have 
deserved.” 

The  publication  of  this  unspoken  speech  raised  for 
the  time  an  enthusiasm  against  Antony,  whom  Cicero 
now  openly  declared  to  be  an  enemy  to  the  state.  He 
hurled  against  him  Philippic  after  Philippic.  The  ap- 


*  I.  e..  the  making  away  with  Antony. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


peal  at  tlie  end  of  that  which  comes  the  sixth  in  order  is 
eloquent  enough. 

“The  time  is  come  at  last,  fellow-citizens;  somewhat 
too  late,  indeed,  for  the  dignity  of  the  people  of  Rome, 
but  at  least  the  crisis  is  so  ripe,  that  it  cannot  now  be 
deferred  an  instant  longer.  We  have  had  one  calamity 
sent  upon  us,  as  I  may  say,  by  fate,  which  we  bore  with 
— in  such  sort  as  it  might  be  borne.  If  another  befalls 
us  now,  it  will  be  one  of  our  own  choosing.  That  this 
Roman  people  should  serve  any  master,  when  the  gods 
above  have  willed  us  to  be  the  masters  of  the  world,  is 
a  crime  in  the  sight  of  heaven.  The  question  hangs 
now  on  its  last  issue.  The  struggle  is  for  our  liberties. 
You  must  either  conquer,  Romans — and  this,  assuredly, 
with  such  patriotism  and  such  unanimity  as  I  see  here, 
you  must  do — or  you  must  endure  anything  and  every¬ 
thing  rather  than  be  slaves.  Other  nations  may  endure 
the  yoke  of  slavery,  but  the  birthright  of  the  people  of 
Rome  is  liberty.” 

Antony  had  left  Rome,  and  thrown  himself,  like 
Catiline,  into  the  arms  of  his  soldiers,  in  his  province 
of  Cisalpine  Gaul.  There  he  maintained  himself  in 
defiance  of  the  Senate,  who  at  last,  urged  by  Cicero,  de¬ 
clared  him  a  public  enemy.  Csesar  Octavianus  (great- 
nephew  of  Julius)  offered  his  services  to  the  state,  and 
with  some  hesitation  they  were  accepted.  The  last 
struggle  was  begun.  Intelligence  soon  arrived  that  An¬ 
tony  had  been  defeated  at  Mutina  by  the  two  last  con¬ 
suls  of  the  Republic,  Hirtiusand  Pansa.  The  news  was 
dashed,  indeed,  afterwards  by  the  further  announce¬ 
ment  that  both  consuls  had  died  of  their  wounds. 
But  it  was  in  the  height  of  the  first  exultation  that 
Cicero  addressed  to  the  Senate  his  fourteenth  Philippic 
'—the  last  oration  which  he  was  ever  to  make.  Fo? 


CICERO. 


75 


the  moment,  he  found  himself  once  more  the  fore¬ 
most  man  at  Rome.  Crowds  of  roaring  patriots  had 
surrounded  his  house  that  morning,  escorted  him  in 
triumph  up  to  the  Capitol,  and  back  to  his  own  house, 
as  they  had  done  in  the  days  of  his  early  glory. 
Young  Caesar,  who  had  paid  him  much  personal  defer¬ 
ence,  was  professing  himself  a  patriot;  the  Common¬ 
wealth  was  safe  again — and  Cicero  almost  thought  that 
he  again  himself  had  saved  it. 

But  Rome  now  belonged  to  those  who  had  the  legions. 
It  had  come  to  that;  and  when  Antony  succeeded  in 
joining  interests  with  Octavianus  (afterwards  miscalled 
Augustus) — “the  boy,”  as  both  Cicero  and  Antony 
called  him — a  boy  in  years  as  yet,  but  premature  in  craft 
and  falsehood — who  had  come  “to  claim  his  inheri¬ 
tance,”  and  succeeded  in  rousing  in  the  old  veterans  of 
his  uncle  the  desire  to  take  vengeance  on  his  murder¬ 
ers,  the  fate  of  the  Republic  and  of  Cicero  was  sealed. 

It  was  on  a  little  eyot  formed  by  the  river  Reno,  near 
Bologna,  that  Antony,  young  Caesar,  and  Lepidus  (the 
nominal  third  in  what  is  known  as  the  Second  Trium¬ 
virate)  met  to  arrange  among  themselves  the  division  of 
power,  and  what  they  held  to  be  necessary  to  the  secur¬ 
ing  it  for  the  future — the  proscription  of  their  several 
enemies.  No  private  affections  or  interests  were  to  be 
allowed  to  interfere  with  this  merciless  arrangemant.  If 
Lepidus  would  give  up  his  brother,  Antony  would  sur¬ 
render  an  obnoxious  uncle.  Octavianus  made  a  cheaper 
sacrifice  in  Cicero,  whom  Antony,  we  may  be  sure,  with 
those  terrible  Philippics  ringing  in  his  ears,  demanded 
with  an  eager  vengeance.  All  was  soon  amicably  set¬ 
tled;  the  proscription-lists  were  made  out,  and  the  Tri¬ 
umvirate  occupied  Rome. 

Cicero  and  his  brother — whose  name  was  known  to 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


be  also  on  tlie  fatal  roll — heard  of  it  while  they  were 
together  at  the  Tusculan  villa.  Both  took  immediate 
measures  to  escape.  But  Quintus  had  to  return  to 
Rome  to  get  money  for  their  flight,  and,  as  it  would 
appear,  to  fetch  his  son.  The  emissaries  of  the  Trium¬ 
virate  were  sent  to  search  the  house:  the  father  had 
hid  himself,  but  the  son  was  seized,  and  refusing  to 
give  any  information,  was  put  to  the  torture.  His  father 
heard  his  cries  of  agony,  came  forth  from  his  hiding- 
place,  and  asked  only  to  be  put  to  death  first.  The  son 
in  his  turn  made  the  same  request,  and  the  assassins 
were  so  far  merciful  that  they  killed  both  at  once. 

Cicero  himself  might  yet  have  escaped,  but  for  some¬ 
thing  of  his  old  indecision.  He  had  gone  on  board  a 
small  vessel  with  the  intention  of  joining  Brutus  in 
Macedonia,  when  he  suddenly  changed  his  mind,  and 
insisted  on  being  put  on  shore  again.  He  wandered 
about,  half -resolving  (for  the  third  time)  On  suicide. 
He  would  go  to  Rome,  stab  himself  on  the  altar-hearth 
in  young  Caesar’s  house,  and  call  down  the  vengeance 
of  heaven  upon  the  traitor.  The  accounts  of  these  last 
hours  of  his  life  are,  unfortunately,  somewhat  con¬ 
tradictory,  and  none  of  the  authorities  to  be  entirely 
depended  on;  Abeken  has  made  a  careful  attempt  to 
harmonize  them,  which  it  will  be  best  here  to  follow. 

Urged  by  the  prayers  of  his  slaves,  the  faithful 
adherents  of  a  kind  master,  he  once  more  embarked, 
and  once  more  (Appian  says,  from  sea-sickness,  which 
he  never  could  endure)  landed  near  Caieta,  where  he 
had  a  seaside  villa.  Either  there,  or,  as  other  accounts 
say,  at  his  house  at  Formige,  he  laid  himself  down  to 
pass  the  night,  and  wait  for  death.  “  Let  me  die,”  said 
he,  “  in  my  own  country,  which  I  have  so  often  saved.” 
But  again  the  faithful  slaves  aroused  him,  forced  him 


CICERO. 


77 


into  a  litter,  and  hurried  him  down  through  the  woods 
to  the  sea-shore — for  the  assassins  were  in  hot  pursuit 
of  him.  They  found  his  house  shut  up;  but  some 
traitor  showed  them  a  short  cut  by  which  to  overtake 
the  fugitive.  As  he  lay  reading  (it  is  said),  even  dur-^ 
ing  these  anxious  moments,  a  play  of  his  favorite  ^ 
Euripides,  every  line  of  whom  he  used  to  declare  con¬ 
tained  some  maxim  worth  remembering,  he  heard  their 
steps  approaching,  and  ordered  the  litter  to  be  set 
down.  He  looked  out,  and  recognized  at  the  head  of 
the  party  an  officer  named  Laenas,  whom  he  had  once 
successfully  defended  on  a  capital  charge ;  but  he  saw 
no  gratitude  or  mercy  in  the  face,  though  there  were 
others  of  the  band  who  covered  their  eyes  for  pity, 
when  they  saw  the  disheveled  gray  hair  and  pale  worn 
features  of  the  great  Roman  (he  was  within  a  month 
of  sixty-four).  He  turned  from  Laenas  to  the  cen¬ 
turion,  one  Henrennius,  and  said,  “  Strike,  old  soldier, 
if  you  understand  your  trade !”  At  the  third  blow — by 
one  or  other  of  those  officers,  for  both  claimed  the  evil 
honor — his  head  was  severed.  They  carried  it  straight 
to  Antony,  where  he  sat  on  the  seat  of  justice  in  the 
Forum,  and  demanded  the  offered  reward.  The  trium¬ 
vir,  in  his  joy,  paid  it  some  ten  times  over.  He  sent 
the  bloody  trophy  to  his  wife;  and  the  Roman  Jezebel 
spat  in  the  dead  face,  and  ran  her  bodkin  through  the 
tongue  which  had  spoken  those  bold  and  bitter  truths 
against  her  false  husband.  The  great  orator  fulfilled, 
almost  in  the  very  letter,  the  words  which,  treating  of 
the  liberty  of  the  pleader,  he  had  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Crassus — “You  must  cut  out  this  tongue,  if  you  would 
check  my  free  speech :  nay,  even  then,  my  very  breath¬ 
ing  should  protest  against  your  lust  for  power.”  The 
head,  by  Antony’s  order,  was  then  nailed  upon  the 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Rostra,  to  speak  there,  more  eloquently  than  ever  the 
living  lips  had  spoken,  of  the  dead  liberty  of  Rome. 


CHAPTER  Yli. 

CHARACTER,  AS  A  POLITICIAN  AND  AN  ORATOR. 

Cicero  shared  very  largely  in  the  feeling,  which  is 
common  to  all  men,  of  ambition  and  energy — a  desire  to 
stand  well  not  only  with  their  own  generation,  but  with 
posterity.  It  is  a  feeling  natural  to  every  man  who 
knows  that  his  name  and  acts  must  necessarily  become 
historical.  If  it  is  more  than  usually  patent  in  Cicero’s 
case,  it  is  only  because  in  his  letter  to  Atticus  we  have 
more  than  usual  access  to  the  inmost  heart  of  the 
writer;  for  surely  such  a  thoroughly  confidential  corre¬ 
spondence  has  never  been  published  before  or  since. 
“What  will  history  say  of  me  six  hundred  years 
hence?”  he  asks,  unbosoming  himself  in  this  sort  to  his 
friend.  More  than  thrice  the  six  hundred  years  have 
passed,  and,  in  Cicero’s  case,  history  has  hardly  yet 
made  up  its  mind.  He  has  been  lauded  and  abused, 
from  his  own  times  down  to  the  present,  in  terms  as 
extravagant  as  are  to  be  found  in  the  most  passionate 
of  his  own  orations ;  both  his  accusers  and  his  champions 
have  caught  the  trick  of  his  rhetorical  exaggeration 
more  easily  than  his  eloquence.  Modern  German  critics 
like  Drumann  and  Mommsen  have  attacked  him  with 
hardly  less  bitterness,  though  with  more  decency,  than 
the  historian  Dio  Cassius,  who  lived  so  near  his  own 
times.  Bishop  Middleton,  on  the  other  hand,  in  those 
pleasant  and  comprehensive  volumes  which  are  still  to 
this  day  the  great  storehouse  of  materials  for  Cicero’s 


CICERO. 


79 


biography,  is  as  blind  to  bis  faults  as  though  he  were 
himself  delivering  a  panegyric  in  the  Rostra  at  Rome. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  partiality  of  the  learned  bishop’s  view 
which  has  produced  a  reaction  in  the  minds  of  sceptical 
German  scholars,  and  of  some  modern  writers  of  our 
own.  It  is  impossible  not  to  sympathize  in  some  de¬ 
gree  with  that  Athenian  who  was  tired  of  always  hearing 
Aristides  extolled  as  “the  Just;”  and  there  was  certainly 
a  strong  temptation  to  critics  to  pick  holes  in  a  man’s 
character  who  was  perpetually,  during  his  lifetime  and 
for  eighteen  centuries  after  his  death,  having  a  trumpet 
sounded  before  him  to  announce  him  as  the  prince  of 
patriots  as  well  as  philosophers;  worthy  indeed,  as 
Erasmus  thought,  to  be  canonized  as  a  saint  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  but  for  the  single  drawback  of  his  not 
having  been  a  Christian. 

On  one  point  some  of  his  eulogists  seem  manifestly 
unfair.  They  say  that  the  circumstances  under  which 
we  form  our  judgment  of  the  man  are  exceptional  in 
this — that  we  happen  to  possess  in  his  case  all  this  mass 
of  private  and  confidential  letters  (there  are  nearly  eight 
hundred  of  his  own  which  have  come  down  to  us), 
giving  us  an  insight  into  his  private  motives,  his  secret 
jealousies,  and  hopes,  and  fears,  and  ambitions,  of 
which  in  the  case  of  other  men  we  have  no  such  reve¬ 
lation.  It  Is  quite  true;  but  his  advocates  forget  that 
it  is  from  the  very  same  pages  which  reveal  his  weak¬ 
nesses  that  they  draw  their  real  knowledge  of  many  of 
those  characteristics  which  they  most  admire — his  sin¬ 
cere  love  for  his  country,  his  kindness  of  heart,  his 
amiability  in  all  his  domestic  relations.  It  is  true  that 
we  cannot  look  into  the  private  letters  of  Csesar,  or 
Pompey,  or  Brutus,  as  we  can  into  Cicero’s;  but  it  is 
not  so  certain  that  if  we  could  our  estimate  of  their 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


characters  would  be  lowered.  We  might  discover,  in 
their  cases  as  in  his,  many  traces  of  what  seems  insin¬ 
cerity,  timidity,  a  desire  to  sail  with  the  stream;  we 
might  find  that  the  views  which  they  expressed  in  pub¬ 
lic  were  not  always  those  which  they  entertained  in 
private;  but  we  might  also  find  an  inner  current  of 
kindness,  and  benevolence,  and  tenderness  of  heart,  for 
which  the  world  gives  them  little  credit.  One  enthu¬ 
siastic  advocate,  Wieland,  goes  so  far  as  to  wish  that 
this  kind  of  evidence  could,  in  the  case  of  such  a  man 
as  Cicero,  have  been  “  cooked,”  to  use  a  modern  phrase: 
that  we  could  have  had  only  a  judicious  selection  from 
this- too  truthful  mass  of  correspondence;  that  his  sec¬ 
retary,  Tiro,  or  some  judicious  friend,  had  destroyed  the 
whole  packet  of  letters  in  which  the  great  Roman  be¬ 
moaned  himself,  during  his  exile  from  Rome,  to  his 
wife,  to  his  brother,  and  to  Atticus.  The  partisan 
method  of  writing  history,  though  often  practised,  has 
seldom  been  so  boldly  professed. 

But  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  if  we  know  too  much 
of  Cicero  to  judge  him  merely  by  his  public  life,  as  we 
are  obliged  to  do  with  so  many  heroes  of  history,  we 
also  know  far  too  little  of  those  stormy  times  in  which 
he  lived  to  pronounce  too  strongly  upon  his  behaviour 
in  such  difficult  circumstances.  The  true  relations  be¬ 
tween  the  various  parties  at  Rome,  as  we  have  tried  to 
sketch  them,  are  confessedly  puzzling  even  to  the  care¬ 
ful  student.  And  without  a  thorough  understanding 
of  these,  it  is  impossible  to  decide,  with  any  hope  of 
fairness,  upon  Cicero’s  conduct  as  a  patriot  and  a  poli¬ 
tician.  His  character  was  full  of  conflicting  elements, 
like  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and  was  necessarily  in 
a  great  degree  molded  by  them.  The  egotism  which 
shows  itself  so  plainly  alike  in  his  public  speeches  and 


CICERO. 


81 


in  his  private  writings,  more  Ilian  once  made  1dm  per¬ 
sonal  enemies,  and  brought  him  into  trouble,  though  it 
was  combined  with  great  kindness  of  heart  and  con¬ 
sideration  for  others.  He  saw  the  right  clearly,  and 
desired  to  follow  it,  but  his  good  intentions  were  too 
often  frustrated  by  a  want  of  firmness  and  decision. 
His  desire  to  keep  well  with  men  of  all  parties,  so  long 
as  it  seemed  possible  (and  this  not  so  much  from  the 
desire  of  self-aggrandizement,  as  from  a  hope  through 
their  aid  to  serve  the  commonwealth)  laid  him  open  on 
more  than  one  occasion  to  the  charge  of  insincerity. 

There  is  one  comprehensive  quality  which  may  be 
said  to  have  been  wanting  in  his  nature,  which  clouded 
his  many  excellences,  led  him  continually  into  false 
positions,  and  even  in  his  delightful  letters  excites  in 
the  reader,  from  time  to  time,  an  impatient  feeling  of 
contempt.  He  wanted  manliness.  It  was  a  quality 
which  was  fast  dying  out,  in  his  day,  among  even  the 
best  of  the  luxurious  and  corrupt  aristocracy  of  Rome. 
It  was  perhaps  but  little  missed  in  his  character  by 
those  of  his  contemporaries  who  knew  and  loved  him 
best.  But  without  that  quality,  to  an  English  mind, 
it  is  hard  to  recognize  in  any  man,  however  brilliant 
and  amiable,  the  true  philosopher  or  hero. 

The  views  which  this  great  Roman  politician  held 
upon  the  vexed  question  of  the  ballot  did  not  differ 
materially  from  those  of  his  worthy  grandfather  before- 
mentioned.*  The  ballot  was  popular  at  Rome, — for 
many  reasons,  some  of  them  not  the  most  creditable 
to  the  characters  of  the  voters;  and  because  it  was 
popular,  Cicero  speaks  of  it  occasionally,  in  his  forensic 
speeches,  with  a  cautious  praise;  but  of  his  real  esti- 


*  See  p.  3. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


mate  of  it  there  can  be  no  kind  of  doubt.  “I  am 
of  the  same  opinion  now,”  he  writes  to  bis  brother, 
“that  ever  I  was;  there  is  nothing  like  the  open 
suffrage  of  the  lips.”  So  in  one  of  his  speeches,  he 
uses  even  stronger  language:  “The  ballot,”  he  says, 
“enables  men  to  open  their  faces,  and  to  cover  up 
their  thoughts;  it  gives  them  licence  to  promise  what¬ 
ever  they  are  asked,  and  at  the  same  time  to  do  what¬ 
ever  they  please.”  Mr.  Grote  once  quoted  a  phrase  of 
Cicero’s,  applied  to  the  voting-papers  of  his  day,  as  a 
testimony  in  favor  of  this  mode  of  secret  suffrage — 
grand  words,  and  wholly  untranslatable  into  anything 
like  corresponding  English — “  Tabella  vindex  tacitaz 
libertatis” — “the  tablet  which  secures  the  liberty  of 
silence.”  But  knowing  so  well  as  Cicero  did  what  was 
the  ordinary  'character  of  Roman  jurors  and  Roman 
voters,  and  how  often  this  “liberty  of  silence”  was  a 
liberty  to  take  a  bribe  and  to  vote  the  other  way,  one 
can  almost  fancy  that  we  see  upon  his  lips,  as  he  utters 
the  sounding  phrase,  that  playful  curve  of  irony  which 
is  said  to  have  been  their  characteristic  expression.* 
Mr.  Grote  forgot,  too,  as  was  well  pointed  out  by  a 
writer  in  the  “Quarterly  Review, ”f  that  in  the  very 
next  sentence  the  orator  is  proud  to  boast  that  he 
himself  was  not  so  elected  to  office,  but  “by  the  living 
voices”  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

The  character  of  his  eloquence  may  be  understood 
in  some  degree  by  the  few  extracts  which  have  been 
given  from  his  public  speeches;  always  remembering 
how  many  of  its  charms  are  necessarily  lost  by  losing 


*  No  bust,  coin,  or  gem  is  known  which  bears  any  genuine 
likeness  of  Cicero.  There  are  several  existing  which  purport  to 
be  such,  but  all  are  more  or  less  apocryphal, 
t  Quarterly  Review,  lxi.  522. 


CICERO . 


8B 


the  actual  language  in  which  his  thoughts  were  clothed. 
We  have  lost  perhaps  nearly  as  much  in  another  way, 
in  that  we  can  only  read  the  great  orator  instead  of 
listening  to  him.  Yet  it  is  possible,  after  all,  that 
this  loss  to  us  is  not  so  great  as  it  might  seem.  Some 
of  his  best  speeches,  as  we  know — those,  for  instance, 
against  Yerres  and  in  defence  of  Milo — were  written 
in  the  closet,  and  never  spoken  at  all ;  and  most  of  the 
others  were  reshaped  and  published  for  publication. 
Nor  is  it  certain  that  his  declamation,  which  some  of 
his  Roman  rivals  found  fault  with  as  savoring  too 
much  of  the  florid  Oriental  type,  would  have  been  agree¬ 
able  to  our  colder  English  taste.  He  looked  upon  gesture 
and  action  as  essential  elements  of  the  orator’s  power, 
and  had  studied  them  carefully  from  the  artists  of  the 
theatre.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  have  his  own 
views  on  this  point  in  the  words  which  he  has  put 
into  the  mouth  of  his  “Brutus,”  in  the  treatise  on 
oratory  which  bears  that  name.  He  protests  against  the 
“Attic  coldness”  of  style  which,  he  says,  would  soon 
empty  the  benches  of  their  occupants.  He  would 
have  the  action  and  bearing  of  the  speaker  to  be  such 
that  even  the  distant  spectator,  too  far  off  to  hear, 
should  “  know  that  there  was  a  Roscius  on  the  stage.” 
He  would  have  found  a  French  audience  in  this  re¬ 
spect  more  sympathetic  than  an  English  one.*  His 


*  Our  speakers  certainly  fall  into  the  other  extreme.  The 
British  orator’s  style  of  gesticulation  may  still  be  recognized, 
mutatis  mutandis ,  in  Addison’s  ljumorous  sketch  of  a  century 
ago:  “  You  may  see  many  a  smart  rhetorician  turning  his  hat 
in  his  hands,  molding  it  into  several  different  cocks,  examin¬ 
ing  sometimes  the  lining  and  sometimes  the  button,  during  the 
whole  course  of  his  harangue.  A  deaf  man  would  think  that  he 
was  cheapening  a  beaver,  when  he  is  talking  perhaps  of  the  fate 
of  the  British  nation.” 


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TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


own  highly  nervous  temperament  would  certainly  tend 
to  excited  action.  The  speaker,  who,  as  we  are  told, 
“shuddered  visibly  over  his  whole  body  when  he  first 
began  to  speak,”  was  almost  sure,  as  he  warmed  to  his 
work,  to  throw  himself  into  it  with  a  passionate  energy. 

He  has  put  on  record  his  own  ideas  of  the  qualifica¬ 
tions  and  the  duties  of  the  public  speaker,  whether  in 
the  Senate  or  at  the  bar,  in  three  continuous  treatises 
on  the  subject,  entitled  respectively,  “On  Oratory,” 
“Brutus,”  and  “  The  Orator,”  as  well  as  in  some  other 
works  of  which  we  have  only  fragments  remaining. 
With  the  first  of  these  works,  which  he  inscribed  to 
his  brother,  he  was  himself  exceedingly  well  satisfied, 
and  it  perhaps  remains  still  the  ablest,  as  it  was  the 
first,  attempt  to  reduce  eloquence  to  a  science.  The 
second  is  a  critical  sketch  of  the  great  orators  of  Rome: 
and  in  the  third  we  have  Cicero’s  view  of  what  the 
perfect  orator  should  be.  His  ideal  is  a  high  one,  and 
a  true  one ;  that  he  should  not  be  the  mere  rhetorician, 
any  more  than  the  mere  technical  lawyer  or  keen 
partisan,  but  the  man  of  perfect  education  and  perfect 
taste,  who  can  speak  on  all  subjects,  out  of  the  fulness 
of  his  mind,  “with  variety  and  copiousness.” 

Although,  as  has  been  already  said,  he  appears  to 
have  attached  but  little  value  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
technicalities  of  law,  in  other  respects  his  preparation 
for  his  work  was  of  the  most  careful  kind;  if  we 
may  assume,  as  we  probably  may,  that  it  is  his  own 
experience  which,  in  his  treatise  on  Oratory,  he  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Marcus  Antonius,  one  of  his  greatest 
predecessors  at  the  Roman  bar. 

“It  is  my  habit  to  have  every  client  explain  to  me 
personally  his  own  case;  to  allow  no  one  else  to  be 
present,  that  so  he  may  speak  more  freely.  Then  I 


CICERO . 


85 


take  the  opponent’s  side,  while  I  make  him  plead  his 
own  cause,  and  bring  forward  whatever  arguments  he 
can  think  of.  Then,  when  he  is  gone,  I  take  upon 
myself,  with  as  much  impartiality  as  I  can,  three  dif¬ 
ferent  characters — my  own,  my  opponent’s,  and  that  of 
the  jury.  Whatever  point  seems  likely  to  help  the 
case  rather  than  injure  it,  this  I  decide  must  be  brought 
forward;  when  I  see  that  anything  is  likely  to  do 
more  harm  than  good,  I  reject  and  throw  it  aside  alto¬ 
gether.  So  I  gain  this, — that  I  think  over  first  what 
I  mean  to  say,  and  speak  afterwards;  while  a  good 
many  pleaders,  relying  on  their  abilities,  try  to  do 
both  at  once.”* 

He  reads  a  useful  lesson  to  young  and  zealous  advo¬ 
cates  in  the  same  treatise — that  sometimes  it  may  be 
wise  not  to  touch  at  all  in  reply  upon  a  point  which 
makes  against  your  client,  and  to  which  you  have  no 
real  answer;  and  that  it  is  even  more  important  to 
say  nothing  which  may  injure  your  case  than  to  omit 
something  which  might  possibly  serve  it.  A  maxim 
which  some  modern  barristers  (and  some  preachers 
also)  might  do  well  to  bear  in  mind. 

Yet  he  did  not  scorn  to  use  what  may  almost  be  called 
the  tricks  of  his  art,  if  he  thought  they  would  help  to 
secure  him  a  verdict.  The  outward  and  visible  appeal 
to  the  feelings  seems  to  have  been  as  effective  in  the 
Roman  forum  as  with  a  British  jury.  Cicero  would 
have  his  client  stand  by  his  side  dressed  in  mourn¬ 
ing,  with  hair  disheveled,  and  in  tears,  when  he 
meant  to  make  a  pathetic  appeal  to  the  compassion  of 
the  jurors;  or  a  family  group  would  be  arranged,  as 
circumstances  allowed, — the*  wife  and  children,  the 


*  De  Oratore  II.,  24,  72. 


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mother  and  sisters,  or  the  aged  father,  if  present¬ 
able,  would  be  introduced  iu  open  court  to  create 
a  sensation  at  the  right  moment.  He  had  tears  ap¬ 
parently  as  ready  at  his  command  as  an  eloquent 
3nd  well-known  English  Attorney-General.  Nay,  the 
tears  seem  to  have  been  marked  down,  as  it  were,  upon 
his  brief.  “  My  feelings  prevent  my  saying  more,”  he 
declares  in  his  defense  of  Publius  Sylla.  “I  weep 
while  I  make  the  appeal” — “I  cannot  go  on  for  tears” 
— he  repeats  towards  the  close  of  that  fine  oration  in 
behalf  of  Milo — the  speech  that  never  was  spoken. 
Such  phrases  remind  us  of  the  story  told  of  a  French 
preacher,  whose  manuscripts  were  found  to  have  mar¬ 
ginal  stage  directions:  “Here  take  out  your  handker¬ 
chief;’ — “here  cry — if  possible.”  But  such  were  held 
to  be  the  legitimate  adjuncts  of  Roman  oratory,  and  it 
is  quite  possible  to  conceive  that  the  advocate,  like 
more  than  one  modern  tragedian  who  could  be  named, 
entered  so  thoroughly  into  the  spirit  of  the  part  that 
the  tears  flowed  quite  naturally. 

A  far  less  legitimate  weapon  of  oratory — offensive 
and  not  defensive — was  the  bitter  and  coarse  person¬ 
ality  in  which  he  so  frequently  indulged.  Its  use  was 
held  perfectly  lawful  in  the  Roman  forum,  whether  in 
political  debate  or  in  judicial  pleadings,  and  it  was 
sure  to  be  highly  relished  by  a  mixed  audience.  There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Cicero  had  recourse  to  it 
in  any  unusual  degree;  but  employ  it  he  did,  and 
most  unscrupulously.  It  was  not  only  private  charac¬ 
ter  that  he  attacked,  as  in  the  case  of  Antony  and 
Clodius,  but  even  personal  defects  or  peculiarities  were 
made  the  subject  of  bitter  ridicule.  He  did  not  hesi¬ 
tate  to  season  his  harangue  by  a  sarcasm  on  the  cast 
in  the  prosecutor’s  eye,  or  the  wen  on  the  defendant’s 


CICERO . 


87 


neck,  and  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  court  to  these 
points,  as  though  they  were  corroborative  evidence  of 
a  moral  deformity.  The  most  conspicuous  instance 
of  this  practice  of  his  is  in  the  invective  which  he 
launched  in  the  Senate  against  Piso,  who  had  made  a 
speech  reflecting  upon  him.  Referring  to  Cicero’s  exile, 
he  had  made  that  sore  subject  doubly  sore  by  declaring 
that  it  was  not  Cicero’s  unpopularity,  so  much  as  his 
unfortunate  propensity  to  bad  verse,  which  had  been  the 
cause  of  it.  A  jingling  line  of  his  to  the  effect  that 

“The  gown  wins  grander  triumphs  than  the  sword.”  * 

had  been  thought  to  be  pointed  against  the  recent 
victories  of  Pompey,  and  to  have  provoked  him  to  use 
his  influence  to  get  rid  of  the  author.  But  this  an¬ 
notation  of  Cicero’s  poetry  had  not  been  Piso’s  only 
offence.  He  had  been  consul  at  the  time  of  the  exile, 
and  had  given  vent,  it  may  be  remembered,  to  the 
witticism  that  the  “saviour  of  Rome”  might  save  the 
city  a  second  time  by  his  absence.  Cicero  was  not 
the  man  to  forget  it.  The  beginning  of  his  attack 
on  Piso  is  lost,  but  there  is  quite  enough  remaining. 
Piso  was  of  a  swarthy  complexion,  approaching  prob¬ 
ably  to  the  negro  type.  “Beast” — is  the  term  by 
which  Cicero  addresses  him.  “Beast!  there  is  no 
mistaking  the  evidence  of  that  slave-like  hue,  those 
bristly  cheeks,  those  discolored  fangs.  Your  eyes, 
your  brows,  your  face,  your  whole  aspect,  are  the  tacit 
index  to  your  soul.”f 


*  “  Cedant  arma  togae,  concedat  laurea  linguae.” 
t  Such  flowers  of  eloquence  are  not  encouraged  at  the  modern 
bar.  But  they  were  common  enough,  even  in  the  English  law- 
courts,  in  former  times  Mr.  Attorney-General  Coke's  language 
to  Raleigh  at  his  trial— “  Thou  viper!”  comes  quite  up  t<? 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


It  is  not  possible,  within  the  compass  of  these  pages, 
to  give  even  the  briefest  account  of  more  than  a  few  of 
the  many  causes  (they  are  twenty-four  in  number)  in 
which  the  speeches  made  by  Cicero,  either  for  the 
prosecution  or  the  defence,  have  been  preserved  to  us. 
Some  of  them  have  more  attraction  for  the  English 
reader  than  others,  either  from  the  facts  of  the  case 
being  more  interesting  or  more  easily  understood,  or 
from  their  affording  more  opportunity  for  the  display 
of  the  speaker’s  powers. 

Mr.  Fox  had  an  intense  admiration  for  the  speech 
in  defense  of  Cselius.  The  opinion  of  one  who  was 
no  mean  orator  himself,  on  his  great  Roman  predeces¬ 
sor,  may  be  worth  quoting: — 

“  Argumentative  contention  is  not  what  he  excels  in;  and  he 
is  never,  I  think,  so  happy  as  when  he  has  an  opportunity  of  ex¬ 
hibiting  a  mixture  of  philosophy  and  pleasantry,  and  especially 
when  he  can  interpose  anecdotes  and  references  to  the  authority 
of  the  eminent  characters  in  the  history  of  his  own  country. 
No  man  appears,  indeed,  to  have  had  such  a  real  respect  for  au¬ 
thority  as  he;  and  therefore  when  he  speaks  on  that  subject  he 
is  always  natural  and  earnest.”  * 

There  is  anecdote  and  pleasantry  enough  in  this  par¬ 
ticular  oration;  but  the  scandals  of  Roman  society  of 
that  day,  into  which  the  defence  of  Cselius  was  obliged 
to  enter,  are  not  the  most  edifying  subject  for  any  read- 


Cicero’s.  Perhaps  the  Irish  House  of  Parliament,  while  it  ex¬ 
isted,  furnished  the  choicest  modern  specimens  of  this  style  of 
oratory.  Mr.  O’ Flanagan,  in  his  “  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors 
of  Ireland,”  tells  us  that  a  member  for  Galway,  attacking  an 
opponent  when  he  knew  that  his  sister  was  present  during  the 
debate,  denounced  the  whole  family — “  from  the  toothless  old 
hag  that  is  now  grinning  in  the  gallery,  to  the  white-livered 
scoundrel  that  is  shivering  on  the  floor.” 

*  Letter  to  G.  Wakefield— Correspondence,  p.  35. 


CICERO. 


89 


ers.  Cselius  was  a  young  man  of  “equestrian”  rank, 
who  bad  been  a  kind  of  ward  of  Cicero’s,  and  must  have 
given  him  a  good  deal  of  trouble  by  his  profligate  habits, 
if  the  guardianship  was  anything  more  than  nominal. 
But  in  this  particular  case  the  accusation  brought  against 
him — of  trying  to  murder  an  ambassador  from  Egypt  by 
means  of  hired  assassins,  and  then  to  poison  the  lady 
who  had  lent  him  the  money  to  bribe  them  with — was 
probably  untrue.  Clodia,  the  lady  in  question,  was 
the  worthy  sister  of  the  notorious  Clodius,  and  bore  as 
evil  a  reputation  as  it  was  possible  for  a  woman  to  bear 
in  the  corrupt  society  of  Rome — which  is  saying  a  great 
deal.  She  is  the  real  mover  in  the  case,  though  another 
enemy  of  Cselius,  the  son  of  a  man  whom  he  had  himself 
brought  to  trial  for  bribery,  was  the  ostensible  prosecu¬ 
tor.  Cicero,  therefore,  throughout  the  whole  of  his 
speech,  aims  the  bitter  shafts  of  his  wit  and  eloquence 
at  Clodia.  His  brilliant  invectives  against  this  lady, 
who  was,  as  he  pointedly  said,  “  not  only  noble  but  no¬ 
torious,”  are  not  desirable  to  quote.  But  the  opening 
of  the  speech  is  in  the  advocate’s  best  style.  The  trial, 
it  seems,  took  place  on  a  public  holiday,  when  it  was 
net  usual  to  take  any  cause  unless  it  were  of  pressing 
importance. 

“If  any  spectator  be  here  present,  gentlemen,  who 
knows  nothing  of  our  laws,  our  courts  of  justice,  or  our 
national  customs,  he  will  not  fail  to  wonder  what  can 
be  the  atrocious  nature  of  this  case,  that  on  a  day  of 
national  festival  and  public  holiday  like  this,  when  all 
other  business  in  the  Forum  is  suspended,  this  single 
trial  should  be  going  on;  and  he  will  entertain  no  doubt 
but  that  the  accused  is  charged  with  a  crime  of  such 
enormity,  that  if  it  were  not  at  once  taken  cognizance 
of,  the  constitution  itself  would  be  in  peril.  And  if  he 


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heard  there  was  a  law  which  enjoined  that  in  the  case  of 
seditions  and  disloyal  citizens  who  should  take  up  arms 
to  attack  the  Senate-house,  or  use  violence  against  the 
magistrates,  or  levy  war  against  the  commonwealth,  in¬ 
quisition  into  the  matter  should  be  made  at  once,  on  the 
very  day; — he  would  not  find  fault  with  such  a  law:  he 
would  only  ask  the  nature  of  the  charge.  But  when  he 
heard  that  it  was  no  such  atrocious  crime,  no  treason¬ 
able  attempt,  no  violent  outrage,  which  formed  the 
subject  of  this  trial,  but  that  a  young  man  of  brilliant 
abilities,  hard-working  in  public  life,  and  of  popular 
character,  was  here  accused  by  the  son  of  a  man  whom 
he  had  himself  once  prosecuted,  and  was  still  prosecut¬ 
ing,  and  that  all  a  bad  woman’s  wealth  and  influence 
were  being  used  against  him, — he  might  take  no  excep¬ 
tion  to  the  filial  zeal  of  Atratinus;  but  he  would  surely 
say  that  woman’s  infamous  revenge  should  be  baffled  and 
punished.  ...  I  can  excuse  Atratinus;  as  to  the  other 
parties,  they  deserve  neither  excuse  nor  forbearance.” 

It  was  a  stronge  story,  the  case  for  the  prosecution, 
especially  as  regarded  the  alleged  attempt  to  poison 
Clodia.  The  poison  was  given  to  a  friend  of  Caelius, 
he  was  to  give  it  to  some  slaves  of  Clodia  whom  he  was 
to  meet  at  certain  baths  frequented  by  her,  and  they 
were  in  some  way  to  administer  it.  But  the  slaves  be¬ 
trayed  the  secret;  and  the  lady  employed  certain  gay 
and  profligate  young  men,  who  were  hangers-on  of  her 
own,  to  conceal  themselves  somewhere  in  the  baths,  and 
pounce  upon  Caelius’s  emissary  with  the  poison  in  his 
possession.  But  this  scheme  was  said  to  have  failed. 
Clodia’s  detectives  had  rushed  from  their  place  of  con¬ 
cealment  too  soon,  and  the  bearer  of  the  poison  escaped. 
The  counsel  for  the  prisoner  makes  a  great  point  of  this. 

“Why,  ’tis  the  catastrophy  of  a  stage-play — nay,  of  a 


CICERO . 


91 


burlesque;  when  no  more  artistic  solution  of  the  plot 
can  be  invented,  the  hero  escapes,  the  bell  rings,  and — 
the  curtain  falls !  For  I  ask  why,  when  Licinius  was 
there  trembling,  hesitating,  retreating,  trying  to  escape 
— why  that  lady’s  body-guard  let  him  go  out  of  their 
hands?  Were  they  afraid  lest,  so  many  against  one, 
such  stout  champions  against  a  single  helpless  man, 
frightened  as  he  was  and  fierce  as  they  were,  they  could 
not  master  him?  I  should  like  exceedingly  to  see  them, 
those  curled  and  scented  youths,  the  bosom-friends  of 
this  rich  and  noble  lady;  those  stout  men-at-arms  who 
were  posted  by  their  she-captain  in  this  ambuscade  in 
the  baths.  And  I  should  like  to  ask  them  how  they  hid 
themselves,  and  where?  A  bath? — why,  it  must  either 
have  been  a  Trojan  horse,  which  bore  within  its  womb 
this  band  of  invincible  heroes  who  went  to  war  for  a 
woman!  I  would  make  them  answer  this  question, — 
why  they,  being  so  many  and  so  brave,  did  not  either 
seize  this  slight  strippling,  whom  you  see  before  you, 
where  he  stood,  or  overtake  him  when  he  fled?  They 
will  hardly  be  able  to  explain  themselves,  I  fancy,  if 
they  get  into  that  witness-box,  however  clever  and  witty 
they  may  be  at  the  banquet, — nay,  even  eloquent  occa¬ 
sionally,  no  doubt,  over  their  wine.  But  the  air  of  a 
court  of  justice  is  somewhat  different  from  that  of  the 
banquet-hall;  the  benches  of  this  court  are  not  like 
the  couches  of  a  supper-table;  the  array  of  this  jury 
presents  a  different  spectacle  from  a  company  of  rev¬ 
elers;  nay,  the  broad  glare  of  sunshine  is  harder  to  face 
than  the  glitter  of  the  lamps.  If  they  venture  into  it,  I 
shall  have  to  strip  them  of  their  pretty  conceits  and 
fools’  gear.  But,  if  they  will  be  ruled  by  me,  they  will 
betake  themselves  to  another  trade,  win  favor  in  another 
quarter,  flaunt  themselves  elsewhere  than  in  this  court. 


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Let  them  carry  their  brave  looks  to  their  lady  there;  let 
them  lord  it  at  her  expense,  cling  to  her,  lie  at  her  feet, 
be  her  slaves;  only  let  them  make  no  attempt  upon  the 
life  and  honor  of  an  innocent  man.” 

The  satellites  of  Clodia  could  scarcely  have  felt  com¬ 
fortable  under  this  withering  fire  of  sarcasm.  The 
speaker  concluded  with  an  apology — much  required — 
for  his  client’s  faults,  as  those  of  a  young  man,  and  a 
promise  on  his  behalf — on  the  faith  of  an  advocate — 
that  he  would  behave  better  for  the  future.  He 
wound  up  the  whole  with  a  point  of  sensational 
rhetoric  which  was  common,  as  has  been  said,  to 
the  Roman  bar  as  to  our  own — an  appeal  to  the 
jurymen  as  fathers.  He  pointed  to  the  aged  father  of 
the  defendant,  leaning  in  the  most  approved  attitude 
upon  the  shoulder  of  his  son.  Either  this,  or  the  want 
of  evidence,  or  the  eloquence  of  the  pleader,  had  its  due 
effect.  Cselius  was  triumphantly  acquitted ;  and  it  is  a 
proof  that  the  young  man  was  not  wholly  graceless,  that 
he  rose  afterwards  to  high  public  office,  and  never  for¬ 
got  his  obligations  to  his  eloquent  counsel,  to  whom  he 
continued  a  stanch  friend.  He  must  have  had  good 
abilities,  for  he  was  honored  with  frequent  letters  from 
Cicero  when  the  latter  was  governor  of  Cilicia.  He 
kept  up  some  of  his  extravagant  tastes;  for  when  he 
was  iEdile  (which  involved  the  taking  upon  him  the  ex¬ 
pense  of  certain  gladiatorial  and  wild-beast  exhibitions), 
he  wrote  to  beg  his  friend  to  send  him  out  of  his  pro¬ 
vince  some  panthers  for  his  show.  Cicero  complied 
with  the  request,  and  took  the  opportunity,  so  character¬ 
istic  of  him,  of  lauding  his  own  administration  of  Cilicia, 
and  making  a  kind  of  pun  at  the  same  time.  “  I  have 
given  orders  to  the  hunters  to  see  about  the  panthers; 
but  panthers  are  very  scarce,  and  the  few  there  are 


CICERO . 


93 


complain,  people  say,  that  in  the  whole  province  there 
are  no  traps  laid  for  anybody  but  for  them.”  Catching 
and  skinning  the  unfortunate  provincials,  which  had 
been  a  favorite  sport  with  governors  like  Yerres,  had 
been  quite  done  away  with  in  Cilicia,  we  are  to  under¬ 
stand,  under  Cicero’s  rule. 

His  defence  of  Ligarius,  who  was  impeached  of  trea¬ 
son  against  the  state  in  the  person  of  Caesar,  as  having 
borne  arms  against  him  in  his  African  campaign,  has 
also  been  deservedly  admired.  There  was  some  courage 
in  Cicero’s  undertaking  his  defence;  as  a  known  parti¬ 
san  of  Pompey,  he  was  treading  on  dangerous  and 
delicate  ground.  Caesar  was  dictator  at  the  time ;  and 
the  case  seems  to  have  been  tried  before  him  as  the  sole 
judicial  authority,  without  pretence  of  the  intervention 
of  anything  like  a  jury.  The  defence — if  defence  it 
may  be  called — is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  common 
appeal,  not  to  the  merits  of  the  case,  but  to  the  feelings 
of  the  court.  After  making  out  what  case  he  could  for 
his  client,  the  advocate  as  it  were  throws  up  his  brief, 
and  rests  upon  the  clemency  of  the  judge.  Caesar  him¬ 
self,  it  must  be  remembered,  had  begun  public  life,  like 
Cicero,  as  a  pleader:  and,  in  the  opinion  of  some  com¬ 
petent  judges,  such  as  Tacitus  and  Quintilian,  had  bid 
fair  to  be  a  close  rival. 

“  I  have  pleaded  many  causes,  Caesar — some,  indeed, 
in  association  with  yourself,  while  your  public  career 
spared  you  to  the  courts;  but  surely  I  never  yet  used 
language  of  this  sort, — ‘  Pardon  him,  sirs,  he  has  of¬ 
fended  :  he  has  made  a  false  step :  he  did  not  think  to 
do  it;  he  never  will  again.’  This  is  language  we  use  to 
a  father.  To  the  court  it  must  be, — ‘  He  did  not  do  it: 
he  never  contemplated  it:  the  evidence  is  false;  the 
charge  is  fabricated.’  If  you  tell  me  you  sit  but  as  the 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


judge  of  the  fact  in  this  case,  Caesar, — if  you  ask  me 
where  and  when  he  served  against  you, — I  am  silent;  I 
will  not  now  dwell  on  the  extenuating  circumstances, 
which  even  before  a  judicial  tribunal  might  have  their 
weight.  We  take  this  course  before  a  judge,  but  I  am 
here  pleading  to  a  father.  ‘  I  have  erred — I  have  done 
wrong,  I  am  sorry:  I  take  refuge  in  your  clemency;  I 
ask  forgiveness  for  my  fault;  I  pray  you,  pardon  me.’ 
.  .  .  There  is  nothing  so  popular,  believe  me,  sir,  as 

kindness;  of  all  your  many  virtues  none  wins  men’s 
admiration  and  their  love  like  mercy.  In  nothing  do 
men  reach  so  near  the  gods,  as  when  they  can  give  life 
and  safely  to  mankind.  Fortune  has  given  you  nothing 
more  glorious  than  the  power,  your  own  nature  can 
supply  nothing  more  noble  than  the  will,  to  spare  and 
pardon  wherever  you  can.  The  case  perhaps  demands 
a  longer  advocacy — your  gracious  disposition  feels  it 
too  long  already.  So  I  make  an  end,  preferring  for  my 
cause  that  you  should  argue  with  your  own  heart,  than 
that  I  or  any  other  should  argue  with  you.  I  will  urge 
nothing  more  than  this, — the  grace  which  you  shall 
extend  to  my  client  in  his  absence,  will  be  felt  as  a 
boon  by  all  here  present.” 

The  great  conqueror  was,  it  is  said,  visibly  affected 
by  the  appeal,  and  Ligarius  was  pardoned. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

MINOR  CHARACTERISTICS. 

Hot  content  with  his  triumphs  in  prose,  Cicero  had 
always  an J  ambition  to  be  a  poet.  Of  his  attempts  in 
this  way  we  have  only  some  imperfect  fragments, 
scattered  here  and  there  through  his  other  works, 


CICERO. 


95 


too  scanty  to  form  any  judgment  upon.  His  poetical 
ability  is  apt  to  be  unfairly  measured  by  two  lines 
which  his  opponents  were  very  fond  of  quoting  and 
laughing  at,  and  which  for  that  reason  have  become 
the  best  known.  But  it  is  obvious  that  if  Wordsworth 
or  Tennyson  were  to  be  judged  solely  by  a  line  or  two 
picked  out  by  an  unfavorable  reviewer — say  from 
“Peter  Bell ”  or  from  the  early  version  of  the  “  Miller’s 
Daughter” — posterity  would  have  a  very  mistaken 
appreciation  of  their  merits.  Plutarch  and  the  younger 
Pliny,  who  had  seen  more  of  Cicero’s  poetry  than  we 
have,  thought  highly  of  it.  So  he  did  himself;  but 
so  it  was  his  nature  to  think  of  most  of  his  own  per¬ 
formances;  and  such  an  estimate  is  common  to  other 
authors  besides  Cicero,  though  few  announce  it  so 
openly.  Montaigne  takes  him  to  task  for  this,  with 
more  wit,  perhaps,  than  fairness.  “It  is  no  great  fault 
to  write  poor  verses;  but  it  is  a  fault  not  to  be  able  to 
see  how  unworthy  such  poor  verses  were  of  his  reputa¬ 
tion.”  Voltaire,  on  the  other  hand,  who  was  perhaps 
as  good  a  judge,  thought  there  was  “nothing  more 
beautiful”  than  some  of  the  fragments  of  his  poem  on 
“Marius,”  who  was  the  ideal  hero  of  his  youth.  Per¬ 
haps  the  very  fact,  however,  of  none  of  his  poems  hav¬ 
ing  been  preserved,  is  some  argument  that  such  poetic 
gift  as  he  had  was  rather  facility  than  genius.  He 
wrote,  besides  this  poem  on  “Marius,”  a  “History  of 
my  Consulship,”  and  a  “History  of  my  Own  Times,” 
in  verse,  and  some  translations  from  Homer. 

He  had  no  notion  of  what  other  men  called  relaxation : 
he  found  his  own  relaxation  in  a  change  of  work.  He 
excuses  himself  in  one  of  his  orations  for  this  strange 
taste,  as  it  would  seem  to  the  indolent  and  luxurious 
Roman  nobles  with  whom  he  was  so  unequally  yoked. 


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“  Who  after  all  shall  blame  me,  or  who  has  any  right 
to  be  angry  with  me,  if  the  time  which  is  not  grudged 
to  others  for  managing  their  private  business,  for  at¬ 
tending  public  games  and  festivals,  for  pleasures  of  any 
other  kind — nay,  even  for  very  rest  of  mind  and  body 
— the  time  which  others  give  to  convivial  meetings,  to 
the  gaming-table,  to  the  tennis-court — this  much  I  take 
for  myself,  for  the  resumption  of  my  favorite  studies?” 

In  this  defatigable  appetite  for  work  of  all  kinds,  he 
reminds  us  of  no  modern  politician  so  much  as  of  Sir 
George  Cornewall  Lewis;  yet  he  would  not  have  alto¬ 
gether  agreed  with  him  in  thinking  that  life  would  be 
very  tolerable  if  it  were  not  for  its  amusements.  He 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  of  a  naturally  social  disposition. 
“  I  like  a  dinner-party,”  he  says  in  a  letter  to  one  of  his 
friends  “where  I  can  say  just  what  comes  uppermost, 
and  turn  my  sighs  and  sorrows  into  a  hearty  laugh.  I 
doubt  whether  you  are  much  better  yourself  when  you 
can  laugh  as  you  did  even  at  a  philosopher.  When  the 
man  asked — ‘  Whether  anybody  wanted  to  know  any¬ 
thing?’  you  said  you  had  been  wanting  to  know  all  day 
when  it  would  be  dinner-time.  The  fellow  expected 
you  to  say  you  wanted  to  know  how  many  worlds  there 
were,  or  something  of  that  kind.”  * 

He  is  said  to  have  been  a  great  laugher.  Indeed,  he 
confesses  honestly  that  the  sense  of  humor  was  very 
powerful  with  him — “  I  am  wonderfully  taken  by  any¬ 
thing  comic,”  he  writes  to  one  of  his  friends.  He  reck¬ 
ons  humor  also  as  a  useful  ally  to  the  orator.  “  A  hap¬ 
py  jest  or  facetious  turn  is  not  only  pleasant,  but  also 


*  These  professional  philosophers,  at  literary  dinner  parties, 
offered  to  discuss  and  answer  any  question  propounded  by  the 
company. 


CICERO. 


97 

highly  Useful  occasionally but  he  adds  that  this  is  an 
accomplishment  which  must  come  naturally,  and  can¬ 
not  be  taught  under  any  possible  system.*  There  is  at 
least  sufficient  evidence  that  he  was  much  given  to  mak¬ 
ing  jokes,  and  some  of  them  which  have  come  down*to 
us  would  imply  that  a  Roman  audience  was  not  very 
critical  on  this  point.  There  is  an  air  of  gravity  about 
all  courts  of  justice  which  probably  makes  a  very  faint 
amount  of  jocularity  hailed  as  a  relief.  Even  in  an 
English  law  court,  a  joke  from  the  bar,  much  more 
from  the  bench,  does  not  need  to  be  of  any  remarkable 
brilliancy  in  order  to  be  secure  of  raising  a  laugh :  and 
we  may  fairly  suppose  that  the  same  was  the  case  at 
Rome.  Cicero’s  jokes  were  frequently  nothing  more 
than  puns,  which  it  would  be  impossible,  even  if  it 
were  worth  while,  to  reproduce  to  an  English  ear. 
Perhaps  the  best,  or  at  all  events  the  most  intelligible, 
is  his  retort  to  Hortensius  during  the  trial  of  Yerres. 
The  latter  was  said  to  have  feed  his  counsel  out  of  his 
Sicilian  spoils — especially  there  was  a  figure  of  a  sphinx 
of  some  artistic  value,  which  had  found  its  way  from 
the  house  of  the  ex-governor  into  that  of  Hortensius. 
Cicero  was  putting  a  witness  through  a  cross-examina- 
of  which  his  opponent  could  not  see  the  bearing.  “I 
do  not  understand  all  this,”  said  Hortensius;  “  I  am  no 
hand  at  solving  riddles.”  “  That  is  strange,  too,”  re¬ 
joined  Cicero,  “  when  you  have  a  sphinx  at  home.”  In 
the  same  trial  he  condescended,  in  the  midst  of  that 
burning  eloquence  of  which  we  have  spoken,  to  make 
two  puns  on  the  defendant’s  name.  The  word  “  Verves” 
had  two  meanings  in  the  old  Latin  tongue:  it  signified 
a  “boar-pig,”  and  also  a  “broom”  or  “  sweeping- 


*  De  Orat,  II.  54. 


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brush.”  One  of  Verres’s  friends,  who  either  wTas,  or  had 
the  reputation  of  being,  a  Jew,  had  tried  to  get  the  man¬ 
agement  of  the  prosecution  out  of  Cicero’s  hands. 
“  What  has  a  Jew  to  do  with  porkV’  asked  the  orator. 
Speaking,  in  the  course  of  the  same  trial,  of  the  way  in 
which  the  governor  had  made  “requisitions”  of  all  the 
most  valuable  works  of  art  throughout  the  island,  “  the 
broom  A  said  he,  “swept  clean.”  He  did  not  disdain 
the  comic  element  in  poetry,  more  than  in  prose;  for 
we  find  in  Quintilian*  a  quotation  from  a  punning  epi¬ 
gram  in  some  collection  of  such  trifles  which  in  his  time 
bore  Cicero’s  name.  Tiro  is  said  to  have  collected  and 
published  three  volumes  of  his  master’s  good  things  af¬ 
ter  his  death;  but  if  they  were  not  better  than  those 
which  have  come  down  to  us,  as  contained  in  his  other 
writings,  there  has  been  no  great  loss  to  literature  in 
Tiro’s  “  Ciceroniana.”  He  knew  one  secret  at  least  of  a 
successful  humorist  in  society;  for  it  is  to  him  that  we 
owe  the  first  authoritative  enunciation  of  a  rule  which 
is  universally  admitted — “that  a  jest  never  has  so  good 
an  effect  as  when  it  is  uttered  with  a  serious  counte¬ 
nance.” 

Cicero  had  a  wonderful  admiration  for  the  Greeks. 
“I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess,”  he  writes  to  his 
brother,  “  especially  since  my  life  and  career  have  been 
such  that  no  suspicion  of  indolence  or  want  of  energy 
can  rest  upon  me,  that  all  my  own  attainments  are  due 
to  those  studies  and  those  accomplishments  which  have 
been  handed  down  to  us  in  the  literary  treasures  and  the 
philosophical  systems  of  the  Greeks.”  It  was  no  mere 
rhetorical  outburst,  when  in  his  defence  of  Valerius 
Flaccus,  accused  like  Verres,  whether  truly  or  falsely, 


*  “  Libellus  Jocularis,”  Quint,  viii.  6. 


CICERO. 


99 


of  corrupt  administration  in  his  province,  he  thus 
introduced  the  deputation-  from  Athens  and  Lacedae¬ 
mon  who  appeared  as  witnesses  to  the  character  of  his 
client. 

“  Athenians  are  here  to-day  among  whom  civilization, 
learning,  religion,  agriculture,  public  law  and  justice, 
had  their  birth,  and  whence  they  have  been  disseminat¬ 
ed  over  all  the  world;  for  the  possession  of  whose  city, 
on  account  of  its  exceeding  beauty,  even  gods  are  said 
to  have  contended:  which  is  of  such  antiquity,  that  she 
is  said  to  have  bred  her  citizens  within  herself,  and  the 
same  soil  is  termed  at  once  their  mother,  their  nurse, 
and  their  country;  whose  importance  and  influence  is 
such  that  the  name  of  Greece,  though  it  has  lost  much 
of  its  weight  and  power,  still  holds  its  place  by  virtue 
of  the  renown  of  this  single  city.” 

He  had  forgotten,  perhaps,  as  an  orator  is  allowed  to 
forget,  that  in  the  very  same  speech,  when  his  object  was 
to  discredit  the  accusers  of  his  client,  he  had  said,  what 
was  very  commonly  said  of  the  Greeks  at  Rome,  that 
they  were  a  nation  of  liars.  There  were  excellent  men. 
among  them,  he  allowed — thinking  at  the  moment  of  the 
counter-evidence  which  he  had  ready  for  the  defendant — 
but  he  goes  on  to  make  this  sweeping  declaration: — 

“I  will  say  this  of  the  whole  race  of  the  Greeks:  I 
grant  them  literary  genius,  I  grant  them  skill  in  vari¬ 
ous  accomplishments,  I  do  not  deny  them  elegance  in 
conversation,  acuteness  of  intellect,  fluent  oratory; 
to  any  other  high  qualities  they  may  claim  I  make  no 
objection;  but  the  sacred  obligation  that  lies  upon  a 
witness  to  speak  the  truth  is  wliat  that  nation  has 
never  regarded.”  * 

rr-  ■  — . . . .  . -  ■■■  ■■ 


*  Defense  of  Val.  Flaccus,  c.  4. 


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TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY 


There  was  a  certain  proverb,  he  went  on  to  say, 
“Lend  me  your  evidence,”  implying — “and  you  shall 
have  mine  when  you  want  it;’  a  Greek  proverb,  of 
course,  and  men  knew  these  three  words  of  Greek  who 
knew  no  Greek  besides.  What  he  loved  in  the  Greeks, 
then,  was  rather  the  grandeur  of  their  literature  and 
the  charm  of  their  social  qualities  (a  strict  regard  for 
truth  is,  unhappily,  no  indispensable  ingredient  in  this 
last);  he  had  no  respect  whatever  for  their  national 
character.  The  orator  was  influenced,  perhaps,  most 
of  all  by  his  intense  reverence  for  the  Athenian  De¬ 
mosthenes,  whom,  as  a  master  in  his  art,  he  imitated 
and  well  nigh  worshiped.  The  appreciation  of  liis 
own  powers  which  every  able  man  has,  and  of  which 
Cicero  had  at  least  his  share,  fades  into  humility  when 
he  comes  to  speak  of  his  great  model.  “Absolutely 
perfect,”  he  calls  him  in  one  place;  and  again  in  an¬ 
other,  “  What  I  have  attempted,  Demosthenes  has 
achieved.”  Yet  he  felt  also  at  times,  when  the  fervor 
of  genius  was  strong  within  him,  that  there  was  an 
ideal  of  eloquence  enshrined  in  his  own  inmost  mind, 
“  which  I  can  feel,”  he  says,  “but  which  I  never  knew 
to  exist  in  any  man.” 

He  could  not  only  write  Greek  as  a  scholar,  but  seems 
to  have  spoken  it  with  considerable  ease  and  fluency; 
for  on  one  occasion  he  made  a  speech  in  that  language, 
a  condescension  which  some  of  his  friends  thought 
derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  a  Roman. 

From  the  Greeks  he  learnt  to  appreciate  art.  How 
far  his  taste  was  really  cultivated  in  this  respect  is  Qiffh 
cult  for  us  to  judge.  Some  passages  in  his  letters  to 
Atticus  might  lead  us  to  suspect  that,  as  Disraeli  con¬ 
cludes,  he  was  rather  a  collector  than  a  real  lover  of  art. 
His  appeals  to  his  friend  to  buy  up  for  him  everything 


CICERO. 


101 


and  anything,  and  his  surrender  of  himself  entirely  to 
Atticus’s  judgment  in  such  purchases,  do  not  bespeak  a 
highly  critical  taste.  In  a  letter  to  another  friend,  he 
seems  to  say  that  he  only  bought  statuary  as  “furniture” 
for  the  gymnasium  at  his  country  seat ;  and  he  com¬ 
plains  that  four  figures  of  Bacchanals,  -which  this  friend 
had  just  bought  for  him,  had  cost  more  than  he  would 
care  to  give  for  all  the  statues  that  ever  were  made. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  he  comes  to  deal  with  Verres’s 
wholesale  plunder  of  paintings  and  statues  in  Sicily  he 
talks  abofit  the  several  works  with  considerable  enthusi¬ 
asm.  Either  he  really  understood  his  subject,  or,  like 
an  able  advocate,  he  had  thoroughly  got  up  his  brief. 
But  the  art-notices  which  are  scattered  through  his 
works  show  a  considerable  aquaintance  with  the  artist- 
world  of  his  day.  He  tells  us,  in  his  own  admirable 
style,  the  story  of  Zeuxis,  and  the  selection  which  he 
made  from  all  the  beauties  of  Crotona,  in  order  to  com¬ 
bine  their  several  points  of  perfection  in  his  portrait  of 
Helen;  he  refers  more  than  once,  and  always  in  language 
which  implies  an  appreciation  of  the  artist,  to  the  works 
of  Phidias,  especially  that  which  is  said  to  have  cost 
him  his  life — the  shield  of  Minerva;  and  he  discusses, 
though  it  is  but  by  way  of  illustration,  the  comparative 
points  of  merit  in  the  statues  of  Calamis,  and  Myron, 
and  Polycletus,  and  in  the  paintings  of  the  earlier 
schools  of  Zeuxis,  Polygnotus,  and  Timanthes,  with 
their  four  primitive  colors,  as  compared  with  the  more 
finished  schools  of  Protogenes  and  Apelles. 


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TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CICERO’S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

I.  Atticus. 

It  seems  wonderful  how,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  work, 
Cicero  found  time  to  keep  up  such  a  voluminous  corres¬ 
pondence.  Something  like  eight  hundred  of  his  letters 
still  remain  to  us,  and  there  were  whole  volumes  of 
them  long  preserved  which  are  now  lost,* *  to  say  nothing 
of  the  very  many  which  may  never  have  been  thought 
worth  preserving.  The  secret  lay  in  his  wonderful 
energy  and  activity.  We  find  him  writing  letters  be¬ 
fore  day-break,  during  the  service  of  his  meals,  on  his 
journeys,  and  dictating  them  to  an  amanuensis  as  he 
walked  up  and  down  to  take  needful  exercise. 

His  correspondents  were  of  almost  all  varieties  of 
position  and  character,  from  Caesar  and  Pompey,  the 
great  men  of  the  day,  down  to  his  domestic  servant 
and  secretary,  Tiro.  Among  them  were  rich  and  ease- 
loving  Epicureans  like  Atticus  and  Psetus,  and  even 
men  of  pleasure  like  Caelius:  grave  Stoics  like  Cato, 
eager  patriots  like  Brutus  and  Cassius,  authors  such  as 
Cornelius  Hepos  and  Lucceius  the  historians,  Yarro  the 
grammarian,  and  Metius  the  poet;  men  who  dabbled 
with  literature  in  a  gentleman-like  way,  like  Hirtius  and 
Appius,  and  the  accomplished  literary  critic  and  patron 
of  the  day — himself  of  no  mean  reputation  as  poet, 
orator,  and  historian — Caius  Asinius  Pollio.  Cicero’s 
versatile  powers  found  no  difficulty  in  suiting  the  con- 

^ 

*  Collections  of  his  letters  to  Caesar,  Brutus,  Cornelius  Nepos, 
the  historian,  Hirtius,  Pansa,  and  to  his  son,  are  known  to  have 
.  existed, 


CICERO. 


103 


tents  of  his  own  letters  to  the  various  tastes  and  interests 
of  his  friends.  Sometimes  he  sends  to  his  correspondent 
what  was  in  fact  a  political  journal  of  the  day— rather 
one-sided,  it  must  be  confessed,  as  all  political  journals 
are,  but  furnishing  us  with  items  of  intelligence  which 
throw  light,  as  nothing  else  can,  on  the  history  of  those 
latter  days  of  the  Republic.  Sometimes  he  jots  down 
the  mere  gossip  of  his  last  dinner  party;  sometimes  he 
notices  the  speculations  of  the  last  new  theorist  in  phi¬ 
losophy,  or  discusses  with  a  literary  friend  some  philo¬ 
logical  question — the  latter  being  a  study  in  which  he 
was  very  fond  of  dabbling,  though  with  little  success, 
for  the  science  of  language  was  as  yet  unknown. 

His  chief  correspondent,  as  has  been  said,  was  his  old 
schoolfellow  and  constant  friend  through  life,  Pom 
ponius  Atticus.  The  letters  addressed  to  him  which 
still  remain  to  us  cover  a  period  of  twenty-four  years, 
with  a  few  occasional  interruptions,  and  the  correspon¬ 
dence  only  ceased  with  Cicero’s  death.  The  Athenian- 
ized  Roman,  though  he  had  deliberately  withdrawn  him¬ 
self  from  the  distracting  factions  of'  his  native  city, 
which  he  seldom  revisited,  kept  on  the  best  terms  with 
the  leaders  of  all  parties,  and  seems  to  have  taken  a 
very  lively  interest,  though  merely  in  the  character  of  a 
looker-on,  in  the  political  events  which  crowded  so  fast 
upon  each  other  during  the  fifty  years  of  his  voluntary 
expatriation.  Cicero’s  letters  were  to  him  what  an  Eng¬ 
lish  newspaper  would  be  now  to  an  English  gentleman 
who  for  liis  own  reasons  preferred  to  reside  in  Paris, 
without  forswearing  his  national  interests  and  sympa¬ 
thies.  At  times,  when  Cicero  was  more  at  leisure,  and 
when  messengers  were  handy  (for  we  have  to  remember 
that  there  was  nothing  like  our  modern  post),  Cicero 
would  despatch  one  of  these  letters  to  Atticus  daily. 


104 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


We  have  nearly  four  hundred  of  them  in  all.  They  are 
continually  garnished,  even  to  the  point  of  affectation, 
with  Greek  quotations  and  phrases,  partly  perhaps  in 
compliment  to  his  friend’s  Athenian  tastes,  and  partly 
from  the  writer’s  own  passion  for  the  language. 

So  much  reference  has  been  made  to  them  throughout 
the  previous  biographical  sketch, — for  they  supply  us 
with  some  of  the  most  important  materials  for  Cicero’s 
life  and  times, — that  it  may  be  sufficient  to  give  in  this 
place  two  or  three  of  the  shorter  as  specimens  of  the 
collection.  One  which  describes  a  visit  which  he  re¬ 
ceived  from  Julius  Csesar,  already  Dictator,  in  his 
country-house  near  Puteoli,  is  interesting,  as  affording 
a  glimpse  behind  the  scenes  in  those  momentous  days 
when  no  one  knew  exactly  whether  the  great  captain 
was  to  turn  out  a  patriot  or  a  conspirator  against  the 
liberties  of  Rome. 

‘  ‘  To  think  that  I  should  have  had  such  a  tremendous 
visitor!  But  never  mind ;  for  all  went  off  very  pleasantly. 
But  when  he  arrived  at  Philippus’s  house*  on  the  even¬ 
ing  of  the  second  day  of  the  Saturnalia,  the  place  was  so 
full  of  soldiers  that  they  could  hardly  find  a  spare  table 
for  Caesar  himself  to  dine  at.  There  were  two  thousand 
men.  Really  I  was  in  a  state  of  perplexity  as  to  what 
was  to  be  done  next  day:  but  Barba  Cassius  came  to  my 
aid, — he  supplied  me  with  a  guard.  They  pitched  their 
tents  in  the  grounds,  and  the  house  was  protected.  He 
stayed  with  Pliilippus  until  one  o’clock  on  the  third  day 
of  the  Saturnalia,  and  would  see  no  one.  Going  over 
accounts,  I  suppose,  with  Balbus.  Then  he  walked  on 
the  sea-shore.  After  two  he  had  a  bath:  then  he  listened 
to  some  verses  on  Mamurra,  without  moving  a  muscle 


*  This  was  close  to  Cicero’s  villa,  on  the  coast. 


CICERO. 


105 


of  his  countenance:  then  dressed,*  and  sat  down  to 
dinner.  He  had  taken  a  precautionary  emetic,  and 
therefore  ate  and  drank  heartily  and  unrestrainedly. 
We  had,  I  assure  you,  a  very  good  dinner,  and  well 
served;  and  not  only  that,  but 

‘  The  feast  of  reason  and  the  flow  of  soul ’t 

besides.  His  suite  were  abundantly  supplied  at  three 
other  tables:  the  freedmen  of  the  lower  rank,  and  even 
the  slaves,  were  well  taken  care  of.  The  higher  class 
had  really  an  elegant  entertainment.  Well,  no  need  to 
make  a  long  story;  we  found  we  were  both  ‘flesh  and 
blood.’  Still  he  is  not  the  kind  of  guest  to  whom  you 
would  say — ‘  Now  do,  pray,  take  us  in  your  way  on 
your  return.’  Once  is  enough.  We  had  no  conversa¬ 
tion  on  business,  but  a  good  deal  of  literary  talk.  In 
short,  he  seemed  to  be  much  pleased,  and  to  enjoy  him¬ 
self.  He  said  he  should  stay  one  day  at  Puteoli,  and 
another  at  Baiae.  So  here  you  have  an  account  of  this 
visit,  or  rather  quartering  of  troops  upon  me,  which 
I  disliked  the  thoughts  of,  but  which  really,  as  I  have 
said,  gave  me  no  annoyance.  I  shall  stay  here  a  little 
longer,  then  go  to  my  house  at  Tusculum.  When  Caesar 
passed  Dolabella’s  villa,  all  the  troops  formed  up  on  the 
right  and  left  of  his  horse,  which  they  did  nowhere  else.:}: 
I  heard  that  from  Nicias.” 

In  the  following,  he  is  anticipating  a  visit  from  his 
friend,  and  from  the  lady  to  whom  he  is  betrothed. 


*  Literally,  “he  got  himself  oiled.”  The  emetic  was  a  disgust¬ 
ing  practice  of  Roman  bon  vivants  who  were  afraid  of  indiges¬ 
tion.  » 

t  The  verse  which  Cicero  quotes  from  Lucilius  is  fairly  equiva¬ 
lent  to  this.  ^ 

X  Probably  by  the  way  of  salute ;  or  possibly  as  a  precaution. 


106 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


“  I  liad  a  delightful  visit  from  Ciucius  on  the  30th 
of  January,  before  daylight.  For  he  told  me  that  you 
were  in  Italy,  and  that  he  was  going  to  send  off  some 
messengers  to  you,  and  would  not  let  them  go  without 
a  letter  from  me.  Not  that  I  have  much  to  write 
about  (especially  when  you  are  all  but  here),  except 
to  assure  you  that  I  am  anticipating  your  arrival  with 
the  greatest  delight.  Therefore  fly  to  me,  to  show  your 
own  affection,  and  to  see  what  affection  I  bear  you. 
Other  matters  when  we  meet.  I  have  written  this  in 
a  hurry.  As  soon  as  ever  you  arrive,  bring  all  your 
people  to  my  house.  You  will  gratify  me  very  much 
by  coming.  You  will  see  how  wonderfully  well  Tyr- 
rannio  has  arranged  my  books,  the  remains  of  which 
are  much  better  than  I  had  thought.  And  I  should  be 
very  glad  if  you  could  send  me  a  couple  of  your  library 
clerks,  whom  Tyrranio  could  make  use  of  as  binders, 
and  to  help  him  in  other  ways;  and  tell  them  to  bring 
some  parchment  to  make  indices — syllabuses,  I  believe 
you  Greeks  call  them.  But  this  only  if  quite  conve¬ 
nient  to  you.  But,  at  any  rate,  be  sure  you  come  your¬ 
self  if  you  can  make  any  stay  in  our  parts,  and  bring 
Pilia  with  you,  for  that  is  but  fair,  and  Tullia  wishes  it 
much.  Upon  my  word,  you  have  bought  a  very  fine 
place.  I  hear  that  your  gladiators  fight  capitally.  If 
you  had  cared  to  hire  them  out,  you  might  have  cleared 
your  expenses  at  these  two  last  public  shows.  But  we 
can  talk  about  this  hereafter.  Be  sure  to  come;  and  do 
your  best  about  the  clerks,  if  you  love  me.” 

The  Roman  gentleman  of  elegant  and  accomplished 
tastes,  keeping  a  troop  of  private  gladiators,  and  think¬ 
ing  of  hiring  them  out,  to  our  notions,  is  a  curious  com. 
bination  of  character;  but  the  taste  was  not  essentially 
more  brutal  than  the  pri^e-ring  and  the  cock-fights  Qt 
the  last  o§fituiy? 


CICERO . 


107 


11.  P^ETUS. 

Another  of  Cicero’s  favorite  correspondents  was  Pa- 
pirius  Psetus,  who  seems  to  have  lived  at  home  at  ease, 
and  taken  little  part  in  the  political  tumults  of  his  day. 
Like  Atticus,  he  was  an  Epicurean,  and  thought  more 
of  the  pleasures  of  life  than  of  its  cares  and  duties. 
Yet  Cicero  evidently  took  great  pleasure  in  his  society, 
and  his  letters  to  him  are  written  in  the  same  familiar 
and  genial  tone  as  those  to  his  old  school-fellow.  Some 
of  them  throw  a  pleasant  light  upon  the  social  habits  of 
the  day.  Cicero  had  had  some  friends  staying  with  him 
at  liis  country  seat  at  Tusculum,  to  whom,  he  says,  he 
had  been  giving  lessons  in  oratory.  Dolabella,  his  son- 
in-law,  and  Hirtius,  the  future  consul,  were  among 
them.  “They  are  my  scholars  in  declamation,  and  I 
am  theirs  in  dinner-eating;  for  I  conclude  you  have 
heard  (you  seem  to  hear  everything)  that  they  come  to 
me  to  declaim,  and  I  go  to  them  for  dinners.  ’Tis  all 
very  well  for  you  to  swear  that  you  cannot  entertain 
me  in  such  grand  fashion  as  I  am  used  to,  but  it  is  of 
use.  .  .  .  Better  be  victimized  by  your  friend  than  by 
your  debtors,  as  you  have  been.  After  all,  I  don’t  re¬ 
quire  such  a  banquet  as  leaves  a  great  waste  behind  it; 
a  little  will  do,  only  handsomely  served  and  well 
cooked,  I  remember  your  telling  me  about  a  dinner  of 
Pliamea’s — well,  it  need  not  be  such  a  late  affair  as  that, 
nor  so  grand  in  other  respects;  nay,  if  you  persist  in 
giving  me  one  of  your  mother’s  old  family  dinners,  I 
can  stand  even  that.  My  new  reputation  for  good  liv¬ 
ing  has  reached  you,  I  find,  before  my  arrival,  and  you 
are  alarmed  at  it ;  but,  pray,  put  no  trust  in  your  ante- 
courses — I  have  given  up  that  altogether.  I  used  to 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


spoil  my  appetite,  I  remember,  upon  your  oil  and  sliced 
sausages.  .  .  .  One  expense  I  realty  shall  put  you  to;  I 
must  have  my  warm  bath.  My  other  habits,  I  assure 
you,  are  quite  unaltered;  all  the  rest  is  joke.” 

Psetus  seems  to  answer  him  with  the  same  good-hu¬ 
mored  badinage.  Balbus,  the  governor  of  Africa,  had 
been  to  see  him,  he  says,  and  he  had  been  content  with 
such  humble  fare  as  he  feared  Cicero  might  despise. 
So  much,  at  least,  we  may  gather  from  Cicero’s  an¬ 
swer. 

“  Satirical  as  ever,  I  see.  You  say  Balbus  was  con¬ 
tent  with  very  modest  fare.  You  seem  to  insinuate  that 
when  grandees  are  so  moderate,  much  more  ought  a 
poor  ex-consul  like  myself  so  to  be.  You  don’t  know 
that  I  fished  it  all  out  of  your  visitor  himself,  for  he 
came  straight  to  my  house  on  his  landing.  The  very 
first  words  I  said  to  him  were,  ‘ How  did  you  get  on 
with  our  friend  Paetus?  ’  He  swore  he  had  never  been 
better  entertained.  If  this  referred  to  the  charms  of 
your  conversation,  remember,  I  shall  be  quite  as  appre¬ 
ciative  a  listener  as  Balbus;  but  if  it  meant  the  good 
things  on  the  table,  I  must  beg  you  will  not  treat  us 
men  of  eloquence  worse  than  you  do  a  ‘  Lisper.’  ”  * 

They  carry  on  this  banter  through  several  letters.  Cic¬ 
ero  regrets  that  he  has  been  unable  as  yet  to  pay  his 
threatened  visit,  when  his  friend  would  have  seen  what 
advances  he  had  made  in  gastronomic  science.  He  was 
able  now  to  eat  through  the  whole  bill  of  fare — “  from 
the  eggs  to  the  roti.” 

“  I  [Stoic  that  used  to  be]  have  gone  over  with  my 
whole  forces  into  the  camp  of  Epicurus.  You  will  have 
to  do  with  a  man  who  can  eat,  and  who  knows  what’s 


*  One  of  Cicero’s  puns.  Balbus  means  “  Lisper,” 


CICERO. 


109 


wliat.  You  know  how  conceited  we  late  learners  are, 
as  the  proverb  says.  You  will  have  to  unlearn  those 
little  ‘plain  dinners’  and  makeshifts  of  yours.  We 
have  made  such  advances  in  the  art,  that  we  have  been 
venturing  to  invite,  more  than  once,  your  friends  Ver 
rius  and  Camillus  (what  elegant  and  fastidious  gentlemen 
they  are!).  But  see  how  audacious  we  are  getting!  I 
have  even  given  Hirtius  a  dinner — but  without  a  pea¬ 
cock.  My  cook  could  imitate  nothing  in  his  entertain¬ 
ments  except  the  hot  soup.  ” 

Then  he  hears  that  his  friend  is  in  bed  with  the 
gout. 

“I  am  extremely  sorry  to  hear  it,  as  in  duty  bound; 
still,  I  am  quite  determined  to  come,  that  I  may  see  you, 
and  pay  my  visit — yes,  and  have  my  dinner;  for  I  sup¬ 
pose  your  cook  has  not  got  the  gout  as  well.” 

Such  were  the  playful  epistles  of  a  busy  man.  But 
even  in  some  of  these  lightest  effusions  we  see  the  cares 
of  the  statesman  showing  through.  Here  is  a  portion 
of  a  later  letter  to  the  same  friend. 

“  I  am  very  much  concerned  to  hear  you  have  given 
up  going  out  to  dinner;  for  it  is  depriving  yourself  of 
a  great  source  of  enjoyment  and  gratification.  Then, 
again,  I  am  afraid — for  it  is  as  well  to  speak  honestly 
— lest  you  should  unlearn  certain  old  habits  of  yours, 
and  forget  to  give  your  own  little  dinners.  For  if  for¬ 
merly,  when  you  had  good  examples  to  imitate,  you 
were  still  not  much  of  a  proficient  in  that  way,  how 
can  I  suppose  you  will  get  on  now?  Spurina,  indeed, 
when  I  mentioned  the  thing  to  him,  and  explained  your 
previous  habits,  proved  to  demonstration  that  there 
would  be  danger  to  the  highest  interests  of  the  state  if 
you  did  not  return  to  your  old  ways  in  the  spring.  Eut 
indeed,  my  good  -Psetus,  I  advise  you,  joking  apart,  to 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


associate  with  good  fellows,  and  pleasant  fellows,  and 
men  who  are  fond  of  you.  There  is  nothing  better 
worth  having  in  life,  nothing  that  makes  life  more 
happy.  .  .  .  See  how  I  employ  philosophy  to  recon¬ 

cile  you  to  dinner-parties.  Take  care  of  your  health; 
and  that  you  will  best  do  by  going  out  to  dinner.  .  . 

»  .  But  don’t  imagine,  as  you  love  me,  that  because  I 

write  jestingly  I  have  thrown  off  all  anxiety  about  public 
affairs.  Be  assured,  my  dear  Psetus,  that  I  seek  nothing 
and  care  for  nothing,  night  or  day,  but  how  my  country 
may  be  kept  safe  and  free.  I  omit  no  opportunity  of 
advising,  planning,  or  acting.  I  feel  in  my  heart  that 
if,  in  securing  this,  I  have  to  lay  down  my  life,  I  shall 
have  ended  it  well  and  honorably.” 

III.  His  Brother  Quintus. 

Between  Marcus  Cicero  and  his  younger  brother 
Quintus  there  existed  a  very  sincere  and  cordial  affec¬ 
tion — somewhat  warmer,  perhaps,  on  the  side  of  the 
elder,  inasmuch  as  his  wealth  and  position  enabled  him 
rather  to  confer  that  to  receive  kindnesses;  the  rule  in 
such  cases  being  (so  cynical  philosophers  tell  us)  that  the 
affection  is  lessened  rather  than  increased  by  the  feeling 
of  obligation.  He  almost  adopted  the  younger  Quintus, 
his  nephew,  and  had  him  educated  with  his  own  son; 
and  the  two  cousins  received  their  earlier  training  to¬ 
gether  in  one  or  other  of  Marcus  Cicero’s  country  houses 
under  a  clever  Greek  freedman  of  his,  who  was  an  ex¬ 
cellent  scholar,  and — what  was  less  usual  amongst  his 
countrymen,  unless  Cicero’s  estimate  of  them  does  them 
great  injustice — a  very  honest  man,  but,  as  the  two  boys 
complained,  terribly  passionate.  Cicero  himself,  how¬ 
ever,  was  the  head  tutor — an  office  for  which,  as  he 


CICERO. 


Ill 


modestly  writes,  liis  Greek  studies  fully  qualified  him. 
Quiutus  Cicero  behaved  ill  to  his  brother  after  the  battle 
of  Pharsalia,  making  what  seemed  to  have  been  very 
unjust  accusations  against  him  in  order  to  pay  court  to 
Caesar;  but  they  soon  became  friends  again. 

Twenty-nine  of  the  elder  Cicero’s  letters  to  his  brother 
remain,  written  in  terms  of  remarkable  kindness  and 
affection,  which  go  far  to  vindicate  the  Roman  character 
from  a  charge  which  has  sometimes  been  brought  against 
it  of  coldness  in  these  family  relationships.  Few  modern 
brothers,  probably,  would  write  to  each  other  in  such 
terms  as  these: — 

“Afraid  lest  your  letters  bother  me?  I  wish  you 
would  bother  me,  and  re-bother  me,  and  talk  to  me  and 
at  me;  for  what  can  give  me  more  pleasure?  I  swear 
that  no  muse-stricken  rhymester  ever  reads  his  own  last 
poem  with  more  delight  than  I  do  what  you  write  to  me 
about  matters  public  or  private,  town  or  country.  Here 
now  is  a  letter  from  you  full  of  pleasant  matter,  but 
with  this  dash  of  the  disagreeable  in  it,  that  you  have 
been  afraid — nay,  are  even  now  afraid— of  being  trouble¬ 
some  to  me.  I  could  quarrel  with  you  about  it,  if  that 
were  not  a  sin.  But  if  I  have  reason  to  suspect  any¬ 
thing  of  that  sort  again,  I  can  only  say  that  I  shall 
always  be  afraid  lest,  when  we  are  together,  I  may 
be  troublesome  to  you.” 

Or  take,  again,  the  pathetic  apology  which  he  makes 
for  having  avoided  an  interview  with  Quintus  in  those 
first  days  of  his  exile  when  he  was  so  thoroughly  un¬ 
manned  : — 

“My  brother, ‘my  brother,  my  brother!  Did  you 
really  fear  that  I  was  angry,  because  I  sent  off  the  slaves 
without  any  letter  to  you?  And  did  you  even  think 
that  X  was  unwilling  to  see  you?  I  angry  with  you? 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Could  I  possibly  be  angry  with  you?  .  .  .  When  1 

miss  you,  it  is  not  a  brother  only  that  I  miss.  To  me 
you  have  always  been  the  pleasantest  of  companions,  a 
son  in  dutiful  affection,  a  father  in  counsel.  What 
pleasure  ever  had  I  without  you,  or  you  without  me?” 

Quintus  had  accompanied  Caesar  on  his  expedition 
into  Britain  as  one  of  his  lieutenants,  and  seems  to  have 
written  home  to  his  brother  some  notices  of  the  country; 
to  which  the  latter,  towards  the  end  of  his  reply,  makes 
this  allusion : — 

“How  delighted  I  was  to  get  your  letter  from  Britain! 
I  had  been  afraid  of  the  voyage  across,  afraid  of  the 
rock-bound  coast  of  the  island.  The  other  dangers  of 
such  a  campaign  I  do  not  mean  to  despise,  but  in  these 
there  is  more  to  hope  than  to  fear,  and  I  have  been  rather 
anxiously  expecting  the  result  than  in  any  real  alarm 
about  it.  I  see  you  have  a  capital  subject  to  write 
about.  What  novel  scenery,  what  natural  curiosities 
and  remarkable  places,  what  strange  tribes  and  strange 
customs,  what  a  campaign,  and  what  a  commander  you 
have  to  describe!  I  will  willingly  help  you  in  the  points 
you  request;  and  I  will  send  you  the  verses  you  ask  for 
— though  it  is  sending  ‘an  owl  to  Athens,’*  I  know.” 

In  another  letter  he  says,  “  Only  give  me  Britain  to 
paint  with  your  colors  and  my  own  pencil.”  But  either 
the  Britons  of  those  days  did  not,  after  all,  seem  to  afford 
sufficient  interest  for  poem  or  history,  or  for  some  other 
reason  this  joint  literary  undertaking,  which  seems  once 
to  have  been  contemplated,  was  never  carried  out,  and 
we  have  missed  what  would  beyond  doubt  have  been  a 
highly  interesting  volume  of  sketches  in  Britain  by  the 
brothers  Cicero. 


*  A  Greek  proverb,  equivalent  to  our  “  coals  to  Newcastle,” 


CICERO. 


113 


Quintus  was  a  poet  as  well  as  Ills  brother — nay,  a 
better  poet,  in  the  latter’s  estimation,  or  at  least  be  was 
polite  enough  to  say  so  more  than  once.  In  quantity, 
at  least,  if  not  in  quality,  fhe  younger  must  have  been  a 
formidable  rival,  for  he  wrote,  as  appears  from  one  of 
these  letters,  four  tragedies  in  fifteen  days — possibly 
translations  only  from  the  Greek. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  all  Cicero’s  letters, 
and  perhaps  that  which  does  him  most  credit  both  as 
a  man  and  a  statesman,  is  one  which  he  wrote  to  his 
brother,  who  was  at  the  time  governor  of  Asia.  In¬ 
deed,  it  is  much  more  than  a  letter;  it  is  rather  a  grave 
and  carefully  weighed  paper  of  instructions  on  the 
duties  of  such  a  position.  It  is  full  of  sound  practical 
sense,  and  lofty  principles  of  statesmanship — very  dif¬ 
ferent  from  the  principles  which  too  commonly  ruled 
the  conduct  of  Roman  governors  abroad.  The  province 
which  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Quintus  Cicero  was  one 
of  the  richest  belonging  to  the  Empire,  and  which  pre¬ 
sented  the  greatest  temptations  and  the  greatest  facil¬ 
ities  for  the  abuse  of  power  to  selfish  purposes.  Though 
called  Asia,  it  consisted  only  of  the  late  kingdom  of 
Pergamus,  and  had  come  under  the  dominion  of  Rome, 
not  by  conquest,  as  was  the  case  with  most  of  the 
provinces,  but  by  way  of  legacy  from  Attalus,  the  last 
of  its  kings;  who,  after  murdering  most  of  his  own 
relations,*  had  named  the  Roman  people  as  his  heirs. 
The  seat  of  government  was  at  Ephesus.  The  popu¬ 
lation  was  of  a  very  mixed  character,  consisting  partly 
of  true  Asiatics,  and  partly  of  Asiatic  Greeks,  the 
descendants  of  the  old  colonists,  and  containing  also 
a  large  Roman  element — merchants  who  were  there  for 
purposes  of  trade,  many  of  them  bankers  and  money¬ 
lenders,  and  speculators  who  farmed  the  imperial  taxes* 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


and  were  by  no  means  scrupulous  in  the  matter  of  fleec¬ 
ing  tlic  provincials.  These  latter — the  “Publicani,”  as 
they  were  termed — might  prove  very  dangerous  enemies 
to  any  too  zealous  reformer.  If  the  Roman  governor 
there  really  wished  to  do  his  duty,  wliat  with  the  com¬ 
bined  servility  and  double  dealing  of  the  Orientals,  the 
proverbial  lying  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  grasping  injus¬ 
tice  of  the  Roman  officials,  he  had  a  very  difficult  part 
to  play.  How  Quintus  had  been  playing  it  is  not  quite 
clear.  His  brother,  in  this  admirable  letter,  assumes 
that  he  had  done  all  that  was  right,  and  urges  him  to 
maintain  the  same  course.  But  the  advice  would  hardly 
have  been  needed  if  all  had  gone  well  hitherto. 

“You  will  find  little  trouble  in  holding  your  subor¬ 
dinates  in  check,  if  you  can  but  keep  a  check  upon 
yourself.  So  long  as  you  resist  gain,  and  pleasure,  and 
all  other  temptations,  as  I  am  sure  you  do,  I  cannot 
fancy  there  will  be  any  danger  of  your  not  being  able 
to  check  a  dishonest  merchant  or  an  extortionate  col¬ 
lector.  For  even  the  Greeks,  when  they  see  you  living 
thus,  will  look  upon  you  as  some  hero  from  their  old 
annals,  or  some  supernatural  being  from  heaven,  come 
down  into  their  province. 

“  I  write  thus,  not  to  urge  you  so  to  act,  but  that  you 
may  congratulate  yourself  upon  having  so  acted,  now 
and  heretofore.  For  it  is  a  glorious  thing  for  a  man  to 
have  held  a  government  for  three  years  in  Asia,  in  such 
sort  that  neither  statue,  nor  painting,  nor  work  of  art 
of  any  kind,  nor  any  temptations  of  wealth  or  beauty 
(in  all  which  temptations  your  province  abounds)  could 
draw  you  from  the  strictest  integrity  and  self-control: 
that  your  official  progresses  should  have  been  no  cause 
of  dread  to  the  inhabitants,  that  none  should  be  im¬ 
poverished  by  your  requisitions,  none  terrified  at  tfie 


CICERO. 


115 


news  of  your  approach; — hut  that  you  should  have 
brought  with  you,  wherever  you  came,  the  most  hearty 
rejoicings,  public  and  private,  inasmuch  as  every  town 
saw  in  you  a  protector  and  not  a  tyrant — every  family 
received  you  as  a  guest,  not  as  a  plunderer. 

“But  in  these  points,  as  experience  has  by  this  time 
taught  you,  it  is  not  enough  for  you  to  have  these 
virtues  yourself,  but  you  must  look  to  it  carefully,  that 
in  this  guardianship  of  the  province  not  you  alone,  but 
every  officer  under  you,  discharges  his  duty  to  our  sub¬ 
jects,  to  our  fellow-citizens,  and  to  the  state.  ...  If 
any  of  your  subordinates  seem  grasping  for  his  own 
interest,  you  may  venture  to  bear  with  him  so  long  as 
he  merely  neglects  the  rules  by  which  he  ought  to  be 
personally  bound;  never  so  far  as  to  allow  him  to  abuse 
for  his  own  gain  the  power  with  which  you  have  in¬ 
trusted  him  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  his  office.  For  I 
do  not  think  it  well,  especially  since  the  customs  of 
official  life  incline  so  much  of  late  to  laxity  and  corrupt 
influence,  that  you  should  scrutinize  too  closely  every 
abuse,  or  criticise  too  strictly  every  one  of  your  officers, 
but  rather  place  trust  in  each  in  proportion  as  you  feel 
confidence  in  his  integrity. 

“For  those  whom  the  state  has  assigned  you  as  com¬ 
panions  and  assistants  in  public  business,  you  are  answer- 
able  only  within  the  limits  I  have  just  laid  down;  but 
for  those  whom  you  have  chosen  to  associate  with  your¬ 
self  as  members  of  your  private  establishment  and  per¬ 
sonal  suite,  you  will  be  held  responsible  not  only  for  all 
they  do,  but  for  all  they  say.  .... 

“Your  ears  should  be  supposed  to  hear  only  what 
you  publicly  listen  to,  not  to  be  open  to  every  secret  and 
false  whisper  for  the  sake  of  private  gain.  Your  official 
seal  should  be  not  as  a  mere  common  tool,  but  as  though 


116 


TI1E  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


it  were  yourself;  not  the  instrument  of  other  men’s  wills, 
but  the  evidence  of  your  own.  Your  officers  should  be 
the  agents  of  your  clemency,  not  of  their  own  caprice; 
and  the  rods  and  axes  which  they  bear  should  be  the 
emblems  of  your  dignity,  not  merely  of  your  power.  In 
short,  the  whole  province  should  feel  that  the  persons, 
the  families,  the  reputation,  and  the  fortunes  of  all  over 
whom  you  rule,  are  held  by  you  very  precious.  Let  it 
be  well  understood  that  you  will  hold  that  man  as  much 
your  enemy  who  gives  a  bribe,  if  it  comes  to  your  knowl¬ 
edge,  as  the  man  who  receives  it.  But  no  one  will  offer 
bribes,  if  this  be  once  made  clear,  that  those  who  pre¬ 
tend  to  have  influence  of  this  kind  with  you  have  no 
power,  after  all,  to  gain  any  favor  for  others  at  your 
hands. 


“Let  such,  then,  be  the  foundations  of  your  dignity; 
— first,  integrity  and  self-control  on  your  own  part;  a 
becoming  behavior  on  the  part  of  all  about  you;  a  very 
careful  and  circumspect  selection  of  your  intimates, 
whether  Greeks  or  provincials;  a  grave  and  firm  disci¬ 
pline  maintained  throughout  your  household.  For  if 
such  conduct  befits  us  in  our  private  and  everyday 
relations,  it  becomes  wellnigh  godlike  in  a  government 
of  such  extent,  in  a  state  of  morals  so  depraved,  and 
in  a  province  which  presents  so  many  temptations. 
Such  a  line  of  conduct  and  such  rules  will  alone  enable 
you  to  uphold  that  severity  in  your  decisions  and  de¬ 
crees  which  you  have  employed  in  some  cases,  and  by 
which  we  have  incurred  (and  I  cannot  regret  it)  the 
jealousy  of  certain  interested  parties.  .  .  .  You  may 
safely  use  the  utmost  strictness  in  the  administration 
of  justice,  so  long  as  it  is  not  capricious  or  partial,  but 
maintained  at  the  same  level  for  all.  Yet  it  will  be  of 


CICERO. 


117 


little  use  that  your  own  decisions  be  just  and  carefully 
weighed,  unless  the  same  course  be  pursued  by  all  to 
whom  you  delegate  any  portion  of  your  judicial  autho¬ 
rity.  Such  firmness  and  dignity  must  be  employed  as 
may  not  only  be  above  partiality,  but  above  the  suspi¬ 
cion  of  it.  To  this  must  be  added  readiness  to  give 
audience,  calmness  in  deciding,  care  in  weighing  the 
merits  of  the  case  and  in  satisfying  the  claims  of  the 
parties.” 

Yet  he  advises  that  justice  should  be  tempered  with 
leniency. 

“  If  such  moderation  be  popular  at  Rome,  where 
there  is  so  much  self-assertion,  such  unbridled  freedom, 
so  much  license  allowed  to  all  men; — where  there  are 
so  many  courts  of  appeal  open,  so  many  means  of  help, 
where  the  people  have  so  much  power  and  the  Senate 
so  much  authority;  how  grateful  beyond  measure  will 
moderation  be  in  the  governor  of  Asia,  a  province  where 
all  that  vast  number  of  our  fellow-citizens  and  sub¬ 
jects,  all  those  numerous  states  and  cities,  hang  upon 
one  man’s  nod!  where  there  is  no  appeal  to  the  tribune, 
no  remedy  at  law,  no  Senate,  no  popular  assembly! 
Wherefore  it  should  be  the  aim  of  a  great  man,  and 
one  noble  by  nature  and  trained  by  education  and  lib¬ 
eral  studies,  so  to  behave  himself  in  the  exercise  of  that 
absolute  power,  as  that  they  over  wrhom  he  presides 
should  never  have  cause  to  wish  for  any  authority  other 
than  his.” 

IY.  Tiro. 

Of  all  Cicero’s  correspondence,  his  letters  to  Tiro 
supply  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  his  natural 
kindness  of  heart.  Tiro  was  a  slave;  but  this  must  be 
taken  with  some  explanation.  The  slaves  in  a  house- 


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# 

hold  like  Cicero’s  would  vary  in  position  from  the  low¬ 
est  menial  to  the  important  major-domo  and  the 
confidential  secretary.  Tiro  was  of  this  higher  class. 
He  had  probably  been  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
service,  like  Eliezer  in  the  household  of  Abraham,  and 
had  become,  like  him,  the  trusted  agent  of  his  master 
and  the  friend  of  the  whole  family.  He  was  evidently 
a  person  of  considerable  ability  and  accomplishments, 
acting  as  literary  amanuensis,  and  indeed,  in  some  sort 
as  a  domestic  critic,  to  his  busy,  master.  He  had  ac¬ 
companied  him  to  his  government  in  Cilicia,  and  on 
the  return  home  had  been  taken  ill,  and  obliged  to  be 
left  behind  at  Patrse.  And  this  is  Cicero’s  affectionate 
letter  to  him,  written  from  Leucas  (Santa  Maura)  the 
day  afterwards: — 

“I  thought  I  could  have  borne  the  separation  from 
you  better,  but  it  is  plainly  impossible;  and  although 
it  is  of  great  importance  to  the  honors  which  I  am  ex¬ 
pecting*  that  I  should  get  to  Rome  as  soon  as  possible, 
yet  I  feel  I  made  a  great  mistake  in  leaving  you  behind. 
But  as  it  seemed  to  be  your  wish  not  to  make  the  voy¬ 
age  until  your  health  was  restored,  I  approved  your 
decision.  Nor  do  I  think  otherwise  now,  if  you  are 
still  of  the  same  opinion.  But  if  hereafter,  when  you 
are  able  to  eat  as  usual,  you  think  you  can  follow  me 
here,  it  is  for  you  to  decide.  I  sent  Mario  to  you,  tell¬ 
ing  him  either  to  join  me  with  you  as  soon  as  possible, 
or,  if  you  are  delayed,  to  come  back  here  at  once.  But 
be  assured  of  this,  that  if  it  can  be  so  without  risk  to 
your  health,  there  is  nothing  I  wish  so  much  as  to  have 


*  The  triumph  for  the  victory  gained  under  his  nominal  com¬ 
mand  over  the  hill-tribes  in  Cilicia,  during  his  governorship  of 
that  province  (p.  61). 


CICERO. 


119 


you  with  me.  Only,  if  you  feel  it  necessary  for  your 
recovery  to  stay  a  little  longer  atPatrae,  there  is  nothing 
I  wish  so  much  as  for  you  to  get  well.  If  you  sail  at 
once,  you  will  catch  us  at  Leucas.  But  if  you  want  to 
get  well  first  take  care  to  secure  pleasant  companions, 
fine  weather,  and  a  good  ship.  Mind  this,  my  good 
Tiro,  if  you  love  me — let  neither  Mario’s  visit  nor  this 
letter  hurry  you.  By  doing  what  is  best  for  your  own 
health,  you  will  be  best  obeying  my  directions.  Con¬ 
sider  these  points  with  your  usual  good  sense.  I  miss 
you  very  much;  but  then  I  love  you,  and  my  affection 
makes  me  wish  to  see  you  well,  just  as  my  want  of  you 
makes  me  long  to  see  you  as  soon  as  possible.  But  the 
first  point  is  the  most  important.  Above  all,  therefore, 
take  care  to  get  well:  of  all  your  innumerable  services 
to  me,  this  will  be  the  most  acceptable.” 

Cicero  writes  to  him  continually  during  his  own 
journey  homewards  with  the  most  thoughtful  kindness, 
begs  that  he  will  be  cautious  as  to  what  vessel  he  sails 
in,  and  recommends  specially  one  very  careful  captain. 
He  has  left  a  horse  and  a  mule  ready  for  him  when  he 
lands  at  Brundusium.  Then  he  hears  that  Tiro  had 
been  foolish  enough  to  go  to  a  concert,  or  something  of 
the  kind,  before  he  was  strong,  for  which  he  mildly  re¬ 
proves  him.  He  has  written  to  the  physician  to  spare 
no  care  or  pains,  and.  to  charge,  apparently,  what  he 
pleases.  Several  of  his  letters  to  his  friend  Atticus, 
at  this  date,  speak  in  the  most  anxious  and  affectionate 
terms  of  the  serious  illness  of  this  faithful  servant.  Just 
as  he  and  his  party  are  starting  from  Leucas,  they  send 
a  note  “  from  Cicero  and  his  son,  and  Quintus  the  elder 
and  younger,  to  their  best  and  kindest  Tiro.”  Then 
from  Rome  comes  a  letter  in  the  name  of  the  whole 
family,  wife  and  daughter  included * 


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“  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  aud  Cicero  tlie  younger,  and 
Terentia,  and  Tullia,  and  Brother  Quintus,  and 
Quintus’s  Son,  to  Tiro  send  greeting. 

“Although  I  miss  your  able  and  willing  service 
every  moment,  still  it  is  not  on  my  own  account  so  much 
as  yours  that  I  am  sorry  you  are  not  well.  But 
as  your  illness  has  now  taken  the  form  of  a  quartan 
fever  (for  so  Curius  writes),  I  hope,  if  you  take  care  of 
yourself,  you  will  soon  he  stronger.  Only  be  sure,  if 
you  have  any  kindness  for  me,  not  to  trouble  yourself 
about  anything  else  just  now,  except  how  to  get  well 
as  soon  as  may  be.  I  am  quite  aware  how  much  you 
regret  not  being  with  me;  but  everything  will  go 
right  if  you  get  well.  I  would  not  have  you  hurry,  or 
undergo  the  annoyance  of  sea-sickness  while  you 
are  weak,  or  risk  a  sea  voyage  in  winter.”  Then  he 
tells  him  all  the  news  from  Rome;  how  there  had 
been  quite  an  ovation  on  his  arrival  there ;  how  Caesar 
was  (he  thought)  growing  dangerous  to  the  state;  and 
how  his  own  coveted  “triumph ’’was  still  postponed. 
“All  this,”  he  says,  “I  thought  }mu  would  like  to 
know.”  Then  he  concludes:  “  Over  and  over  again,  I 
beg  you  to  take  care  to  get  well,  and  to  send  me  a  letter 
whenever  you  have  an  opportunity.  Farewell,  again 
and  again.” 

Tiro  got  well,  and  outlived  his  kind  master,  who  very 
soon  after  this,  presented  him  with  his  freedom.  It  is 
to  him  that  we  are  said  to  be  indebted  for  the  preserva¬ 
tion  and  publication  of  Cicero’s  correspondence.  He 
wrote,  also,  a  biography  of  him,  which  Plutarch  had 
seen,  and  of  which  he  probably  made  use  in  his  own 
“Life  of  Cicero,”  but  which  has  not  come  down  to  us. 

There  was  another  of  his  household  for  whom  Cicero 
had  the  same  affection.  This  was  Sositheus,  also  a 


CICERO. 


121 


slave,  but  a  man,  like  Tiro,  of  some  considerable  educa¬ 
tion,  whom  he  employed  as  his  reader.  His  death 
affected  Cicero  quite  as  the  loss  of  a  friend.  Indeed, 
his  anxiety  is  such,  that  his  Roman  dignity  is  almost 
ashamed  of  it.  “I  grieve,”  he  says,  “more  than  I 
ought  for  a  mere  slave.”  Just  as  one  might  now 
apologize  for  making  too  much  fuss  about  a  favorite 
dog;  for  the  slave  was  looked  upon  in  scarcely  a  higher 
light  in  civilized  Rome.  They  spoke  of  him  in  the 
neuter  gender,  as  a  chattel;  and  it  was  gravely  discussed, 
in  case  of  danger  in  a  storm  at  sea,  which  it  would  be 
right  first  to  cast  overboard  to  lighten  the  ship,  a  valu¬ 
able  horse  or  an  indifferent  slave.  Hortensius,  the 
rival  advocate  who  has  been  mentioned,  a  man  of  more 
luxurious  habits  and  less  kindly  spirit  than  Cicero,  who 
was  said  to  feed  the  pet  lampreys  in  his  stews  much  bet 
ter  than  he  did  his  slaves,  and  to  have  shed  tears  at  the 
death  of  one  of  these  ugly  favorites,  would  have  pro¬ 
bably  laughed  at  Cicero’s  concern  for  Sositheus  and 
Tiro. 

But  indeed  every  glimpse  of  this  kind  which  Cicero’s 
correspondence  affords  us  gives  token  of  a  kindly  heart, 
and  makes  us  long  to  know  something  more.  Some 
Lave  suspected  him  of  a  want  of  filial  affection,  owing 
to  a  somewhat  abrupt  and  curt  announcement  in  a 
letter  to  Atticus  of  his  father’s  death;  and  his  stanch 
defenders  propose  to  adopt,  with  Madvig,  the  reading 
discessit — “left  us,”  intead  of  decessit — “died.”  There 
really  seems  no  occasion.  Unless  Atticus  knew  the 
father  intimately,  there  was  no  need  to  dilate  upon  the 
old  man’s  death;  and  Cicero  mentions  subsequently, 
in  terms  quite  as  brief,  the  marriage  of  his  daughter 
and  the  birth  of  his  son — events  in  which  we  are 
assured  he  felt  deeply  interested.  If  any  further  ex 


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TEE  ELZEVIU  LIBRARY. 


planation  of  this  seeming  coldness  be  required,  the  fol¬ 
lowing  remarks  of  Mr.  Forsyth  are  apposite  and  true 

“  The  truth  is,  that  what  we  call  sentiment  was  almost  un‘ 
known  to  the  ancient  Romans,  in  whose  writings  it  would  be  as 
vain  to  look  for  it  as  to  look  for  traces  of  Gothic  architecture 
among  classic  ruins.  And  this  is  something  more  than  a  mere 
illustrations.  It  suggests  a  reason  for  the  absence.  Romance 
and  sentiment  came  from  the  dark  forests  of  the  North,  when 
Scandinavia  and  Germany  poured  forth  their  hordes  to  subdue 
and  people  the  Roman  Empire.  The  life  of  a  citizen  of  the  Re¬ 
public  of  Rome  was  essentially  a  public  life.  The  love  of  coun¬ 
try  was  there  carried  to  an  extravagant  length,  and  was  para¬ 
mount  to,  and  almost  swallowed  up,  the  private  and  social 
affections.  The  state  was  everything,  the  individual  com¬ 
paratively  nothing.  In  one  of  the  letters  of  the  Emperor 
Marcus  Aurelius  to  Fronto,  there  is  a  passage  in  which  he  says 
that  the  Roman  language  had  no  word  corresponding  with  the 
Greek  </uAoo-Topyia,— the  affectionate  love  for  parents  and  chil¬ 
dren.  Upon  this  Niebuhr  remarks  that  the  feeling  was  ‘  not  a 
Roman  one;  but  Cicero  possessed  it  in  a  degree  which  few 
Romans  could  comprehend,  and  hence  he  was  laughed  at  for  the 
grief  which  he  felt  at  the  death  of  his  daughter  Tullia.’  ” 


CHAPTER  X. 

ESSAYS  ON  “OLD  AGE”  AND  “FRIENDSHIP- 

The  treatise  on  “  Old  Age,”  which  is  thrown  into  the 
form  of  a  dialogue,  is  said  to  have  been  suggested  by 
the  opening  of  Plato’s  “Republic,”  in  which  Ceplialus 
touches  so  pleasantly  on  the  enjoyments  peculiar  to 
that  time  of  life.  So  far  as  light  and  graceful  treat¬ 
ment  of  this  subject  goes,  the  Roman  essayist  at  least 
does  not  fall  short  of  his  model.  Montaigne  said  of 


CICERO. 


123 


it,  that  “it  made  one  long  to  grow  old;”*  but  Mon¬ 
taigne  was  a  Frenchman,  and  such  sentiment  was 
quite  in  his  way.  The  dialogue,  whether  it  produce  this 
effect  on  many  readers  or  not,  is  very  pleasant  read¬ 
ing:  and  when  we  remember  that  the  author  wrote 
it  when  he  was  exactly  in  his  grand  climacteric,  and 
addressed  it  to  his  friend  Atticus,  who  was  within  a 
year  of  the  same  age,  we  get  that  element  of  personal 
interest  which  make  all  writings  of  the  kind  more 
attractive.  The  argument  in  defence  of  the  paradox 
that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  grow  old,  proceeds  upon  the 
only  possible  ground,  the  theory  of  compensations.  It 
is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Cato  the  Censor,  who  had 
died  about  a  century  before,  and  who  is  introduced  as 
giving  a  kind  of  lecture  on  the  subject  to  his  young 
friends  Scipio  and  Lselius,  in  his  eighty-fourth  year. 
He  was  certainly  a  remarkable  example  in  his  own 
case  of  its  being  possible  to  grow  old  gracefully  and 
usefully,  if,  as  he  tells  us,  he  was  at  that  age  still  able 
to  take  part  in  the  debates  in  the  Senate,  was  busy 
collecting  materials  for  the  early  history  of  Rome,  had 
quite  lately  begun  the  study  of  Greek,  could  enjoy 
a  country  dinner-party,  and  had  been  thinking  of 
taking  lessons  in  playing  on  the  lyre. 

He  states  four  reasons  why  old  age  is  so  commonly 
considered  miserable.  First,  it  unfits  us  for  active  enu 
ployment;  secondly,  it  weakens  the  bodily  strength; 
thirdly,  it  deprives  us  of  nearly  all  pleasures;  fourthly 
and  lastly,  it  is  drawing  near  death.  As  to  the  first,  the 
old  senator  argues  very  fairly  that  very  much  of  the 
more  important  business  of  life  is  not  only  transacted 
by  old  men,  but  in  point  of  fact,  as  is  confessed  by  the 


*  “  II  donne  l’appetit  de  vieiller,” 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


very  name  aDd  composition  of  the  Roman  Senate,  it  is 
thought  safest  to  intrust  it  to  the  elders  in  the  state. 
The  pilot  at  the  helm  may  not  be  able  to  climb  the 
mast  and  run  up  and  down  the  deck  like  the  younger 
sailor,  but  he  steers  none  the  worse  for  being  old.  He 
quotes  some  well-known  examples  of  this  from  Roman 
annals;  examples  which  might  be  matched  by  obvious 
instances  in  modern  English  history.  The  defense 
which  he  makes  of  old  age  against  the  second  charge 
— loss  of  muscular  vigor — is  rather  more  of  the 
nature  of  special  pleading.  He  says  little  more  than 
that  mere  muscular  strength,  after  all,  is  not  much 
wanted  for  our  happiness:  that  there  are  always  com¬ 
parative  degrees  of  strength;  and  that  an  old  man 
need  no  more  make  himself  unhappy  because  he  has 
not  the  strength  of  a  3roung  man,  than  the  latter  does 
because  he  has  not  the  strength  of  a  bull  or  an  ele¬ 
phant.  It  was  very  well  for  the  great  wrestler  Milo 
to  be  able  to  carry  an  ox  round  the  arena  on  his 
shoulders;  but,  on  the  whole,  a  man  does  not  often 
want  to  walk  about  with  a  bullock  on  his  back. 
The  old  are  said,  too,  to  lose  their  memory.  Cato 
thinks  they  can  remember  pretty  well  all  that  they 
care  to  remember.  They  are  not  apt  to  forget  who 
owes  them  money;  and,  “I  never  knew  an  old  man 
forget,”  he  says,  “where  he  had  buried  his  gold.” 
Then  as  to  the  pleasures  of  the  senses,  which  age  un¬ 
doubtedly  diminishes  our  power  of  enjoying.  “  This,” 
says  Cato,  “is  really  a  privilege,  not  a  deprivation; 
to  be  delivered  from  the  yoke  of  such  tyrants  as  our 
passions — to  feel  that  we  have  ‘  got  our  discharge  ’ 
from  such  a  warfare — is  a  blessing  for  which  men  ought 
rather  to  be  grateful  to  their  advancing  years.”  And 
the  respect  and  authority  which  is  by  general  consent 


CICERO. 


125 


conceded  to  old  age,  is  a  pleasure  more  than  equivalent 
to  the  vanished  pleasures  of  youth. 

There  is  one  consideration  which  the  author  has  not 
placed  among  his  four  chief  disadvantages  of  growing 
old, — which,  however,  he  did  not  forget,  for  he  notices 
it  incidentally  in  the  dialogue, — the  feeling  that  we 
are  growing  less  agreeable  to  our  friends,  that  our  com¬ 
pany  is  less  sought  after,  and  that  we  are,  in  short, 
becoming  tatlier  ciphers  in  society.  This,  in  a  con¬ 
dition  of  high  civilization,  is  really  perhaps  felt  by 
most  of  us  as  the  hardest  to  bear  of  all  the  ills  to 
which  old  age  is  liable.  We  should  not  care  so  much 
about  the  younger  generation  rising  up  and  making  us 
look  old,  if  we  did  not  feel  that  they  are  “pushing  us 
from  our  stools.”  Cato  admits  that  he  had  heard  some 
old  men  complain  that  “they  were  now  neglected  by 
those  'who  had  once  courted  their  society,”  and  he 
quotes  a  passage  from  the  comic  poet  Csecilius : 

“  This  is  the  bitterest  pang  in  growing  old, — 

To  feel  that  we  grow  hateful  to  our  fellows.” 

But  lie  dismisses  the  question  briefly  in  his  own  case 
by  observing  with  some  complacency  that  he  does  not 
think  his  young  friends  find  Ms  company  disagreeable 
— an  assertion  which  Scipio  and  Laelius,  who  occa¬ 
sionally  take  part  in  the  dialogue,  are  far  too  well 
bred  to  contradict.  He  remarks  also,  sensibly  enough, 
that  though  some  old  persons  are  no  doubt  considered 
disagreeable  company,  this  is  in  great  measure  their 
own  fault:  that  testiness  and  ill-nature  (qualities 
which,  as  he  observes,  do  not  usually  improve  with 
age)  are  always  disagreeable,  and  that  such  persons 
attributed  to  their  advancing  years  what  was  in  truth 
the  consequence  of  their  unamiable  tempers.  It  is  pot 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY 


all  wine  which  turns  sour  with  age,  nor  yet  all  tem¬ 
pers;  much  depends  on  the  original  quality.  The  old 
Censor  lays  down  some  maxims  which,  like  the  pre¬ 
ceding,  have  served  as  texts  for  a  good  many  modern 
writers,  and  may  be  found  expanded,  diluted,  or 
strengthened,  in  the  essays  of  Addison  and  Johnson, 
and  in  many  of  their  followers  of  less  repute.  “I 
never  could  assent,”  says  Cato,  “to  that  ancient  and 
much-bepraised  proverb — that  ‘you  must  become  an 
old  man  early,  if  you  wish  to  be  an  old  man  long.’” 
Yet  it  was  a  maxim  which  was  very  much  acted  upon 
by  modern  Englishmen  a  generation  or  two  back. 
It  was  then  thought  almost  a  moral  duty  to  retire 
into  old  age,  and  to  assume  all  its  disabilities  as  well  as 
its  privileges,  after  sixty  years  or  even  earlier.  At 
present  the  world  sides  with  Cato,  and  rushes  perhaps 
into  the  other  extreme ;  for  any  line  at  which  old  age 
now  begins  would  be  hard  to  trace  either  in  dress  or 
deportment.  “We  must  resist  old  age,  and  fight 
against  it  as  a  disease.”  Strong  words  from  the  old 
Roman;  but,  undoubtedly,  so  long  as  we  stop  short 
of  the  attempt  to  affect  juvenility,  Cato  is  right.  We 
should  keep  ourselves  as  young  as  possible.  He  speaks 
shrewd  sense,  again,  when  he  says — “As  I  like  to  see 
a  young  man  who  has  something  old  about  him,  so  I 
like  to  see  an  old  man  in  whom  there  remains  some¬ 
thing  of  the  youth:  and  he  who  follows  this  maxim 
may  become  an  old  man  in  body,  but  never  in  heart.” 
“What  a  blessing  it  is,”  says  Southey,  “to  have  a 
boy’s  heart!”  Do  we  not  all  know  these  charming 
old  people,  to  whom  the  young  take  almost  as  heartily 
as  to  their  own  equals  in  age,  who  are  the  favorite 
consultees  in  all  amusements,  the  confidants  in  ah 
troubles? 


CICERO. 


127 


Cato  is  made  to  place  a  great  part  of  his  own  enjoy¬ 
ment,  in  these  latter  years  of  his,  in  the  cultivation  of 
his  farm  and  garden  (he  had  written,  we  must  remem¬ 
ber,  a  treatise  “  De  Re  Rustica,” — a  kind  of  Roman 
“  Book  of  the  Farm,”  which  we  have  still  remaining). 
He  is  enthusiastic  in  his  description  of  the  pleasures  of 
a  country  gentleman’s  life,  and,  like  a  good  farmer,  as 
no  doubt  he  was,  becomes  eloquent  upon  the  grand 
subject  of  manures.  Gardening  is  a  pursuit  which  he 
holds  in  equal  honor — that  “purest  of  human  pleas¬ 
ures,”  as  Bacon  calls  it.  On  the  subject  of  the  coun¬ 
try  life  generally  he  confesses  an  inclination  to  become 
garrulous — the  one  failing  which  he  admits  may  be  fairly 
laid  to  the  charge  of  old  age.  The  picture  of  the  way 
of  living  of  a  Roman  gentleman-farmer,  as  he  draws  it, 
must  have  presented  a  strong  contrast  with  the  artificial 
city-life  of  Rome. 

“  Where  the  master  of  the  house  is  a  good  and  care¬ 
ful  manager,  his  wine-cellar,  his  oil-stores,  his  larder, 
are  always  well  stocked;  there  is  a  fullness  throughout 
the  whole  establishment;  pigs,  kids,  lambs,  poultry, 
milk,  cheese,  honey, — all  are  in  abundance.  The  pro¬ 
duce  of  the  garden  is  always  equal,  as  our  country-folk 
say,  to  a  double  course.  And  all  these  good  things 
acquire  a  second  relish  from  the  voluntary  labors  of 
fowling  and  the  chase.  What  need  to  dwell  upon  the 
charm  of  the  green  fields,  the  well-ordered  plantations, 
the  beauty  of  the  vineyards  and  olive-groves?  In  short, 
nothing  can  be  more  luxuriant  in  produce,  or  more  de¬ 
lightful  to  the  eye,  than  a  well-cultivated  estate;  and, 
to  the  enjoyment  of  this,  old  age  is  so  far  from  being 
any  liinderance,  that  it  rather  invites  and  allures  us  to 
such  pursuits.” 

He  has  no  patience  with  what  has  been  called  the 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIB  HART. 


despondency  of  old  age — the  feeling,  natural  enough  at 
that  time  of  life,  but  not  desirable  to  be  encouraged, 
that  there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  hope  or  promise  in 
the  future  which  gives  §o  much  of  its  interest  to  the 
present.  He  will  not  listen  to  the  poet  when  he  says 
again — 

“  He  plants  the  tree  that  shall  not  see  the  fruit.” 

The  answer  which  he  would  make  has  been  often  put 
into  other  and  more  elaborate  language,  but  has  a  simple 
grandeur  of  its  own.  “If  any  should  ask  the  aged 
cultivator  for  whom  he  plants,  let  him  not  hesitate  to 
make  this  reply, — ‘  For  the  immortal  gods,  who,  as  they 
willed  me  to  inherit  these  possessions  from  my  fore¬ 
fathers,  so  would  have  me  hand  them  on  to  those  that 
shall  come  after.’” 

The  old  Roman  had  not  the  horror  of  country  society 
which  so  many  civilized  Englishmen  either  have  or 
affect.  “I  like  a  talk,”  he  says,  “  over  a  cup  of  wine.” 
“Even  when  I  am  down  at  my  Sabine  estate,  I  daily 
make  one  at  a  party  of  my  country  neighbors,  and  we 
prolong  our  conversation  very  frequently  far  into  the 
night.”  The  words  are  put  into  Cato’s  mouth,  but  the 
voice  is  the  well-known  voice  of  Cicero.  We  find  him 
here,  as  in  his  letters,  persuading  himself  into  the  be¬ 
lief  that  the  secret  of  happiness  is  to  be  found  in  the 
retirement  of  the  country.  And  his  genial  and  social 
nature  beams  through  it  all.  We  are  reminded  of  his 
half-serious  complaints  to  Atticus.*  of  his  importunate 
visitors  at  Formise,  the  dinner-parties  which  he  was,  as 
we  say  now,  “obliged  to  go  to,”  and  which  he  so  evi¬ 
dently  enjoyed,  f 


*  See  p.  39 

+  “  A  clergyman  was  complaining  of  the  want  of  society  in  the 


CICERO . 


129 


He  is  careful,  however,  to  remind  his  reader  that  old 
age,  to  be  feally  either  happy  or  venerable,  must  not  be 
the  old  age  of  the  mere  voluptuary  or  the  debauchee ; 
that  the  gray  head,  in  order  to  be,  even  in  his  pagan 
sense,  “a  crown  of  glory,”  must  have  been  “found  in 
the  way  of  righteousness.”  Shakespeare  might  have 
learned  from  Cicero  in  these  points  the  moral  which  he 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  Adam — 

“  Therefore  mine  age  is  as  a  lusty  winter, 

Frosty  but  kindly.” 

It  is  a  miserable  old  age,  says  the  Roman,  which  is 
obliged  to  appeal  to  its  gray  hairs  as  its  only  claim  to 
the  respect  of  its  juniors.  “Neither  hoar  hairs  nor 
wrinkles  can  arrogate  reverence  as  their  right.  It  is  the 
life  whose  opening  years  have  been  honorably  spent 
which  reaps  the  reward  of  reverence  at  its  close.” 

In  discussing  the  last  of  the  evils  which  accompany 
old  age,  the  near  approach  of  death,  Cicero  rises  to 
something  higher  than  his  usual  level.  His  Cato  will 
not  have  death  to  be  an  evil  at  all;  it  is  to  him  the 
escaping  from  “the  prison  of  the  body,” — the  “getting 
the  sight  of  land  at  last  after  a  long  voyage,  and  coming 
into  port.”  Nay,  he  does  not  admit  that  death  is  death. 
“  I  have  never  been  able  to  persuade  myself,”  he  says, 
quoting  the  words  of  Cyrus  in  Xenophon,  “that  our 
spirits  were  alive  while  they  were  in  these  mortal 
bodies,  and  died  only  when  they  departed  out  of  them; 
or  that  the  spirit  then  only  becomes  void  of  sense  when 


country  where  he  lived,  and  said, ‘They  talk  of  runts'  (i.e., 
young  cows).  ‘Sir,1  said  Mr.  Salusbury,  ‘Mr.  Johnson  would 
learn  to  talk  of  runts;1  meaning  that  1  was  a  man  who  would 
make  the  most  of  my  situation,  whatever  it  was.11— Boswell’s 
Life.  Cicero  was  like  Dr.  Johnson. 


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TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


it  escapes  from  a  senseless  body;  but  that  rather  when 
freed  from  all  admixture  of  corporality,  it  i§  pure  and 
uncontamiuated,  then  it  most  truly  has  sense.”  “  I  am 
fully  persuaded,”  he  says  to  his  young  listeners,  “that  • 
your  two  fathers,  my  old  and  dearly-loved  friends,  are 
living  now,  and  living  that  life  which  only  is  worthy  to 
be  so  called.”  And  he  winds  up  the  dialogue  with  the 
very  beautiful  apostrophe,  one  of  the  last  utterances  of 
the  philosopher’s  heart,  well  known,  yet  not  too  well 
known  to  be  here  quoted — 

“It  likes  me  not  to  mourn  over  departing  life,  as 
many  men,  and  men  of  learning,  have  done.  Nor  can 
I  regret  that  I  have  lived,  since  I  have  so  lived  that 
I  may  trust  I  was  not  born  in  vain ;  and  I  depart  out 
of  life  as  out  of  a  temporary'  lodging,  not  as  out  of 
my  home.  For  nature  has  given  it  to  us  as  an  inn  to 
tarry  at  by  the  way,  not  as  a  place  to  abide  in.  O 
glorious  day!  when  I  shall  set  out  to  join  that  blessed 
company  and  assembly  of  disembodied  spirits  and 
quit  this  crowd  and  rabble  of  life!  For  I  shall  go  my 
way,  not  only  to  those  great  men  of  whom  I  spoke, 
but  to  my  own  son  Cato,  than  whom  was  never  better 
man  born,  nor  more  full  of  dutiful  affection;  whose 
body  I  laid  on  the  funeral  pile — an  office  he  should 
rather  have  done  for  me.*  But  his  spirit  has  never  left 
me;  it  still  looks  fondly  back  upon  me,  though  it  has 
gone  assuredly  into  those  abodes  where  he  knew  that  I 
myself  should  follow.  And  this  my  great  loss  I  seemed 
to  bear  with  calmness;  not  that  I  bore  it  undisturbed, 
but  that  I  still  consoled  myself  with  the  thought  that 

*  Burke  touches  the  same  key  in  speaking  of  his  son:  “  I  live 
in  an  inverted  order.  They  who  ought  to  have  succeeded  me 
have  gone  before  me :  they  who  should  have  been  to  me  as  pos¬ 
terity  are  in  the  place  of  ancestors.” 


CICERO. 


131 


the  separation  between  us  could  not  be  for  long.  And 
if  I  err  in  this — in  that  I  believe  the  spirits  of  men  to  be 
immortal — I  err  willingly;  nor  would  I  have  this  mis* 
taken  belief  of  mine  uprooted  so  long  as  I  shall  live. 
But  if  after  I  am  dead,  I  shall  have  no  consciousness,  as 
some  curious  philosophers  assert,  then  I  am  not  afraid 
of  dead  philosophers  laughing  at  my  mistake.  ” 


The  essay  on  “Friendship”  is  dedicated  by  the 
author  to  Atticus — an  appropriate  recognition,  as  he 
says,  of  the  long  and  intimate  friendship  which  had 
existed  between  themselves.  It  is  thrown,  like  the 
other,  into  the  form  of  a  dialogue.  The  principal 
speaker  here  is  one  of  the  listeners  in  the  former  one — 
Laelius,  surnamed  the  Wise — who  is  introduced  as  re¬ 
ceiving  a  visit  from  his  two  sons-in-law,  Fannius  and 
Scaevola  (the  great  lawyer  before  mentioned),  soon 
after  the  sudden  death  of  his  great  friend,  the  younger 
Scipio  Africanus.  Laelius  takes  the  occasion,  at  the 
request  of  the  young  men,  to  give  them  his  views  and 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  Friendship  generally.  This 
essay  is  perhaps  more  original  than  that  upon  “  Old 
Age,”  but  certainly  is  not  so  attractive  to  a  modern 
reader.  Its  great  merit  is  the  grace  and  polish  of  the 
language;  but  the  arguments  brought  forward  to  prove 
what  an  excellent  thing  it  is  for  a  man  to  have  good 
friends,  and  plenty  of  them,  in  this  world,  and  the 
rules  for  his  behavior  towards  them,  seem  to  us  some¬ 
what  trite  and  commonplace,  whatever  might  have 
been  their  effect  upon  a  Roman  reader. 

Cicero  is  indebted  to  the  Greek  philosophers  for  the 
main  outlines  of  his  theory  of  friendship,  though  his 
acquaintance  with  the  works  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  was 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


probably  exceedingly  superficial.  He  holds,  with  them, 
that  man  is  a  social  animal;  that  “  we  are  so  constituted 
by  nature  that  there  must  be  some  degree  of  association 
between  us  all,  growing  closer  in  proportion  as  we  are 
brought  into  more  intimate  relations  one  with  another.” 
So  that  the  social  bond  is  a  matter  of  instinct,  not  of 
calculation;  not  a  cold  commercial  contract  of  profit  and 
loss,  of  giving  and  receiving,  but  the  fulfillment  of 
one  of  the  yearnings  of  our  nature.  Here  he  is  in  full 
accordance  with  the  teaching  of  Aristotle,  who,  of  all 
the  various  kinds  of  friendship  to  which  he  allows  the 
common  name,  pronounces  that  which  is  founded 
merely  upon  interest — upon  mutual  interchange,  by 
tacit  agreement,  of  certain  benefits — to  be  the  least 
worth}"  of  such  a  designation.  Friendship  is  defined  by 
Cicero  to  be  “the  perfect  accord  upon  all  questions, 
religious  and  social,  together  with  mutual  goodwill  and 
affection.”  This  “perfect  accord,”  it  must  be  con¬ 
fessed,  is  a  very  large  requirement.  He  follows  his 
Greek  masters  again  in  holding  that  true  friendship  can 
exist  only  among  the  good;  that,  in  fact,  all  friendship 
must  assume  that  there  is  something  good  and  lovable 
in  the  person  towards  whom  the  feeling  is  entertained: 
it  may  occasionally  be  a  mistaken  assumption ;  the  good 
quality  we  think  we  see  in  our  friend  may  have  no  ex¬ 
istence  save  in  our  own  partial  imagination;  but  the 
existence  of  the  counterfeit  is  an  incontestable  evidence 
of  the  true  original.  And  the  greatest  attraction,  and 
therefore  the  truest  friendships,  will  always  be  of  the 
good  towards  the  good. 

He  admits,  however,  the  notorious  fact,  that  good 
persons  are  sometimes  disagreeable;  and  he  confesses 
that  we  have  a  right  to  seek  in  our  friends  amiability 
as  well  as  moral  excellence.  “Sweetness,”  he  says— * 


CICERO. 


338 


anticipating,  as  all  these  ancients  so  provokingly  do, 
some  of  our  most  modern  popular  philosophers— 
“sweetness,  both  in  language  and  in  manner,  is  a  very 
powerful  attraction  in  the  formation  of  friendships.” 
He  is  by  no  means  of  the  same  opinion  as  Sisyphus  in 
Lord  Lytton’s  “  Tale  of  Miletus” — 

“  Now,  then,  I  know  thou  really  art  my  friend, — 

None  but  true  friends  choose  such  unpleasant  words.” 

He  admits  that  it  is  the  office  of  a  friend  to  tell  un¬ 
pleasant  truths  sometimes;  but  there  should  be  a  cer¬ 
tain  amount  of  this  indispensable  “sweetness”  to 
temper  the  bitterness  of  the  advice.  There  are  some 
friends  who  are  continually  reminding  you  of  what 
they  have  done  for  you — “a  disgusting  set  of  people 
verily  they  are,”  says  our  author.  And  there  are  others 
who  are  always  thinking  themselves  slighted;  “in 
which  case  there  is  generally  something  of  which  they 
are  conscious  in  themselves,  as  laying  them  open  to 
contemptuous  treatment.” 

Cicero’s  own  character  displays  itself  in  this  short 
treatise.  Here,  as  everywhere,  he  is  the  politician. 
He  shows  a  true  appreciation  of  the  duties  and  the 
qualifications  of  a  true  friend;  but  his  own  thoughts 
are  running  upon  political  friendships.  Just  as  when, 
in  many  of  his  letters,  he  talks  about  “  all  honest 
men,”  he  means  “our  party;”  so  here,  when  he  talks 
of  friends,  he  cannot  help  showing  that  it  was  of  the 
essence  of  friendship,  in  his  viewg  to  hold  the  same 
political  opinions,  and  that  one  great  use  of  friends  was 
that  a  man  should  not  be  isolated,  as  he  had  sometimes 
feared  he  was,  in  his  political  course.  When  he  puts 
forward  the  old  instances  of  Coriolanus  and  Gracchus, 
and  discusses  the  question  whether  their  “  friends”  were 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


or  were  not  bound  to  aid  them  in  their  treasonable 
designs  against  the  state,  he  was  surely  thinking  of  the 
factions  of  his  own  times,  and  the  troublesome  brother¬ 
hoods  which  had  gathered  round  Catiline  and  Clodius. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  advice  which  he  makes  Lselius 
give  to  his  younger  relatives  is  good  for  all  ages,  modern 
or  ancient:  “  There  is  nothing  in  this  world  more  valu¬ 
able  than  friendship.”  “  Next  to  the  immediate  blessing 
and  providence  of  Almighty  God,”  Lord  Clarendon  was 
often  heard  to  say,  “I  owe  all  the  little  I  know,  and 
the  little  good  that  is  in  me,  to  the  friendships  and 
conversation  I  have  still  been  used  to,  of  the  most  excel¬ 
lent  men  in  their  several  kinds  that  lived  in  that  age.  ” 


CHAPTER  XI. 

CICEKO’S  PHILOSOPHY. 

“  THE  TRUE  ENDS  OP  LIFE.”  * 

Philosophy  was  to  the  Roman  what  religion  is  to  us. 
It  professed  to  answer,  so  far  as  it  might  be  answered, 
Pilate’s  question,  “What  is  truth ?”(  or  to  teach  men, 
as  Cicero  described  it,  “the  knowledge  of  things 
human  and  divine.”  Hence  the  philosopher  invests 
his  subject  with  all  attributes  of  dignity.  To  him 
Philosophy  brings  all  blessings  in  her  train.  She  is 
the  guide  of  life,  the  medicine  for  his  sorrows,  “the 
fountain-head  of  all  perfect  eloquence — the  mother  of 
all  good  deeds  and  good  words.”  He  invokes  with 

X 

*  “  De  Finibus  Bonorum  et  Malorum,” 


CICERO. 


185 


affectionate  reverence  the  great  name  of  Socrates — the 
sage  who  had  “first  drawn  wisdom  down  from  heaven.” 

No  man  even  approached  his  subject  more  richly  laden 
with  philosophic  lore  than  Cicero.  Snatching  every 
leisure  moment  that  he  could  from  a  busy  life,  he  de¬ 
votes  it  to  the  study  of  the  great  minds  of  former  ages. 
Indeed,  he  held  this  study  to  be  the  duty  of  the  perfect 
orator ;  a  knowledge  of  the  human  mind  was  one  of  his 
essential  qualifications.  Nor  could  he  conceive  of  real 
eloquence  without  it;  for  his  definition  of  eloquence  is, 
“  wisdom  speaking  fluently.”  *  But  such  studies  were 
also  suited  to  his  own  natural  tastes.  And  as  years 
passed  on,  and  he  grew  weary  of  civil  discords  and  was 
harassed  by  domestic  troubles,  the  great  orator  turns 
his  back  upon  the  noisy  city,  and  takes  his  parchments 
of  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  be  the  friends  of  his  councils  and 
the  companions  of  his  solitude,  seeking  by  their  light  to 
discover  Truth,  which  Democritus  had  declared  to  be 
buried  in  the  depths  of  the  sea. 

Yet,  after  all,  he  professes  to  do  little  more  than 
translate.  So  conscious  is  he  that  it  is  to  Greece  that 
Rome  is  indebted  for  all  her  literature,  and  so  con¬ 
scious,  also,  on  the  part  of  his  countrymen,  of  what  he 
terms  “  an  arrogant  disdain  for  everything  national,” 
that  he  apologizes  to  his  readers  for  writing  for  the 
million  in  their  mother-tongue.  Yet  he  is  not  content, 
as  he  says,  to  be  “a  mere  interpreter.”  He  thought 
that  by  an  eclectic  process — adopting  and  rearranging 
such  of  the  doctrines  of  his  Greek  masters  as  approved 
themselves  to  his  own  judgment — he  might  make  his 
own  work  a  substitute  for  theirs.  His  ambition  is  to 
achieve  what  he  might  well  regard  as  the  hardest  of 


*  “  Copiose  loquens  sapientia.” 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


tasks — a  popular  treatise  on  philosophy;  and  he  has 
certainly  succeeded.  He  makes  no  pretense  to  origi¬ 
nality;  all  he  can  do  is,  as  he  expresses  it,  "to  array 
Plato  in  a  Latin  dress,”  and  "  present  this  stranger 
from  beyond  the  seas  with  the  freedom  of  his  native 
city.”  And  so  this  treatise  on  the  Ends  of  Life — a 
grave  question  even  to  the  most  careless  thinker — is, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  both  dramatic  and  rhetor¬ 
ical.  Representatives  of  the  two  great  schools  of  philos 
ophy — the  Stoics  and  Epicureans — plead  and  counter¬ 
plead  in  his  pages,  each  in  their  turn;  and  their 
arguments  are  based  on  principles  broad  and  universal 
enough  to  be  valid  even  now.  For  now,  as  then,  men 
are  inevitably  separated  into  two  classes — amiable  men 
of  ease,  who  guide  their  conduct  by  the  rudder-strings  of 
pleasure — who  for  the  most  part  "leave  the  world” 
(as  has  been  finely  said)  "in  the  world’s  debt,  having 
consumed  much  and  produced  nothing;”*  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  zealous  men  of  duty, — 

“  Who  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days,” 

and  act  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  honor  or  their 
conscience.  In  practice,  if  not  in  theory,  a  man  must 
be  either  Stoic  or  Epicurean. 

Each  school,  in  this  dialogue,  is  allowed  to  plead  its 
own  cause.  "Listen”  (says  the  Epicurean)  "to  the 
voice  of  nature  that  bids  you  pursue  pleasure,  and  do 
not  be  misled  by  that  vulgar  conception  of  pleasure  as 
mere  sensual  enjoyment;  our  opponents  misrepresent  us 
.when  they  say  that  we  advocate  this  as  the  highest 
good;  we  hold,  on  the  contrary,  that  men  often  obtain 
the  greatest  pleasure  by  neglecting  this  baser  kind. 


*  Lord  Derby. 


CICERO. 


137 


Your  highest  instances  of  martyrdom  —  of  Decii  de¬ 
voting  themselves  for  their  country,  of  consuls  putting 
their  sons  to  death  to  preserve  discipline — are  not  disin¬ 
terested  acts  of  sacrifice,  but  the  choice  of  a  present  pain 
in  order  to  procure  a  future  pleasure.  Vice  is  but  ig¬ 
norance  of  real  enjoyment.  Temperance  alone  can 
bring  peace  of  mind;  and  the  wicked,  even  if  they  es¬ 
cape  public  censure,  ‘  are  racked  night  and  day  by  the 
anxieties  sent  upon  them  by  the  immortal  gods.’  We 
donot,  in  this,  contradict  your  Stoic;  we,  too,  affirm  that 
only  the  wise  man  is  really  happy.  Happiness  is  as  im¬ 
possible  for  a  mind  distracted  by  passions,  as  for  a  city 
divided  by  contending  factions.  The  terrors  of  death 
haunt  the  guilty  wretch,  ‘  who  finds  out  too  late  that 
he  has  devoted  himself  to  money  or  power  or  glory  to 
no  purpose.’  But  the  wise  man’s  life  is  unalloyed  hap¬ 
piness.  Rejoicing  in  a  clear  conscience,  ‘  he  remembers 
the  past  with  gratitude,  enjoys  the  blessings  of  the 
present,  and  disregards  the  future.’  Thus  the  moral 
to  be  drawn  is  that  which  Horace  (himself,  as  he  ex¬ 
presses  it,  ‘  one  of  the  litter  of  Epicurus’)  impresses  on 
his  fair  friend  Leuconoe : 

‘  Strain  your  wine,  and  prove  your  wisdom;  life  is  short;  should 
hope  be  more? 

In  the  moment  of  our  talking  envious  time  has  slipped  away. 
Seize  the  present,  trust  to-morrow  e’en  as  little  as  you  may.’  ” 

Passing  on  to  the  second  book  of  the  treatise,  we 
hear  the  advocate  of  the  counter-doctrine.  Why,  ex¬ 
claims  the  Stoic,  introduce  Pleasure  to  the  councils  of 
Virtue?  Why  uphold  a  theory  so  dangerous  in  prac¬ 
tice?  Your  Epicurean  soon  turns  Epicure,  and  a  class 
of  men  start  up  who  have  never  seen  the  sun  rise  or  set, 
who  squander  fortunes  on  cooks  and  perfumers,  on 
costly  plate  and  gorgeous  rooms,  and  ransack  sea  and 


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land  for  delicacies  to  supply  their  feasts.  Epicurus 
gives  his  disciples  a  dangerous  discretion  in  their  choice. 
There  is  no  harm  in  luxury  (he  tells  us)  provided  it  be 
free  from  inordinate  desires.  But  who  is  to  fix  the  limit 
to  such  vague  concessions? 

Nay,  more,  he  degrades  men  to  the  level  of  the  brute 
creation.  In  his  view,  there  is  nothing  admirable  be¬ 
yond  this  pleasure — no  sensation  or  emotion  of  the 
mind,  no  soundness  or  health  of  body.  And  what  is 
this  pleasure  which  he  makes  of  such  high  account? 
How  short-lived  while  it  lasts!  how  ignoble  when  we 
recall  it  afterwards!  But  even  the  common  feeling  and 
sentiments  of  men  condemn  so  selfish  a  doctrine.  We 
are  naturally  led  to  uphold  truth  and  abhor  deceit,  to 
admire  Regulus  in  his  tortures,  and  to  despise  a  lifetime 
of  inglorious  ease.  And  then  follows  a  passage  which 
echoes  the  stirring  lines  of  Scott — 

“ Sound,  sound  the  clarion,  fill  the  fife! 

To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim, 

One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name.” 

Do  not  then  (concludes  the  Stoic)  take  good  words  in 
your  mouth,  and  prate  before  applauding  citizens  of 
honor,  duty,  and  so  forth,  while  you  make  your  private 
lives  a  mere  selfish  calculation  of  expediency.  We  were 
surely  born  for  nobler  ends  than  this,  and  none  who  is 
worthy  the  name  of  a  man  would  subscribe  to  doctrines 
which  destroy  all  honor  and  all  chivalry.  The  heroes 
of  old  time  won  their  immortality  not  by  weighing 
pleasures  and  pains  in  the  balance,  but  by  being  prodi¬ 
gal  of  their  lives,  doing  and  enduring  all  things  for  the 
sake  of  their  fellow-men. 

The  opening  scene  in  the  third  book  is  as  lively  and 
dramatic  as  (wbat  was  no  doubt  the  writer’s  model)  the 


CICERO. 


139 


introduction  of  a  Platonic  dialogue.  Cicero  has  walked 
across  from  liis  Tusculan  villa  to  borrow  some  manu¬ 
scripts  from  the  well-stocked  library  of  his  young  friend 
Lucullus  * — a  youth  whose  high  promise  was  sadly  cut 
short,  for  he  was  killed  at  Philippi,  when  lie  was  not 
more  than  twenty-three.  There,  “  gorging  himself  with 
books,”  Cicero  finds  Marcus  Cato — a  Stoic  of  the  Stoics 
— who  expounds  in  a  high  tone  the  principles  of  his 
sect. 

Honor  he  declares  to  be  the  rule,  and  “life  according 
to  nature”  the  end  of  man’s  existence.  And  wrong  and 
injustice  are  more  really  contrary  to  this  nature  than 
either  death,  or  poverty,  or  bodily  suffering,  or  any 
other  outward  evil.”f  Stoics  and  Peripatetics  are 
agreed  at  least  on  one  point — that  bodily  pleasures  fade 
into  nothing  before  the  splendors  of  virtue,  and  that  to 
compare  the  two  is  like  holding  a  candle  against  the 
sunlight,  or  setting  a  drop  of  brine  against  the  waves  of 
the  ocean.  Your  Epicurean  would  have  each  man  live 
in  selfish  isolation,  engrossed  in  his  private  pleasures 
and  pursuits.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  maintain  that 
“Divine  Providence  has  appointed  the  world  to  be  a 
common  city  for  men  and  gods,”  and  each  one  of  us  to 
be  a  part  of  this  vast  social  system.  And  thus  every 
man  has  his  lot  and  place  in  life,  and  should  take  for 
his  guidance  those  golden  rules  of  ancient  times — “Obey 
God;  know  thyself;  shun  excess.”  Then,  rising  to  en¬ 
thusiasm,  the  philosopher  concludes:  “  Who  cannot  but 
admire  the  incredible  beauty  of  such  a  system  of  moral- 


*  See  p.  38. 

t  So  Bishop  Butler,  in  the  preface  to  his  Sermons  upon  “  Hu¬ 
man  Nature,”  says  they  were  “intended  to  explain  what  is 
meant  by  the  nature  of  man,  when  it  is  said  that  virtue  consists 
in  following,  and  vice  in  deviating  from  it.” 


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ity?  What  character  in  history  or  in  fiction  can  he 
grander  or  more  consistent  than  the  ‘  wise  man  ’  of  the 
Stoics?  All  the  riches  and  glory  of  the  world  are  his, 
for  he  alone  can  make  a  right  use  of  all  things.  He  is 
‘ free,’ though  he  be  bound  by  chains;  ‘rich,’  though 
in  the  midst  of  poverty;  ‘beautiful,’  for  the  mind  is 
fairer  than  the  body;  ‘a  king, ’for,  unlike  the  tyrants 
of  the  world,  he  is  lord  of  himself;  ‘happy.’  for  he  has 
no  need  of  Solon’s  warning  to  ‘wait  till  the  end,’  since 
a  life  virtuously  spent  is  a  perpetual  happiness.” 

In  the  fourth  book,  Cicero  himself  proceeds  to  vindi¬ 
cate  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients — the  old  Academic 
school  of  Socrates  and  liis  pupils — against  what  he  con¬ 
siders  the  novelties  of  Stoicism.  All  that  the  Stoics 
have  said  has  been  said  a  hundred  times  before  by  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  but  in  nobler  language.  They  merely 
“pick  out  the  thorns”  and  “lay  bare  the  bones”  of  pre¬ 
vious  systems,  using  newfangled  terms  and  misty  argu¬ 
ments  with  a  “vainglorious  parade.”  Their  fine  talk 
about  citizens  of  the  world  and  the  ideal  wise  man  is 
rather  poetry  than  philosophy.  They  rightly  connect 
happiness  with  virtue,  and  virtue  with  wisdom;  but  so 
did  Aristotle  some  centuries  before  them. 

But  their  great  fault  (says  Cicero)  is,  that  they  ignore 
the  practical  side  of  life.  So  broad  is  the  line  which 
they  draw  between  the  “wise”  and  “  foolish,”  that  they 
would  deny  to  Plato  himself  the  possession  of  wisdom. 
They  take  no  account  of  the  thousand  circumstances 
which  go  to  form  our  happiness.  To  a  spiritual  being, 
virtue  might  be  the  chief  good;  but  in  actual  life  our 
physical  is  closely  bound  up  with  our  mental  enjoy¬ 
ment,  and  pain  is  one  of  those  stern  facts  before  which 
all  theories  are  powerless.  Again,  by  their  fondness  for 
paradox,  they  reduce  all  offenses  to  the  same  dead  level. 


CICERO . 


141 


It  is,  in  their  eyes,  as  impious  to  beat  a  slave  as  to  beat 
a  parent:  because,  as  they  say,  “nothing  can  be  more 
virtuous  than  virtue, — nothing  more  vicious  than  vice.” 
And  lastly,  this  stubbornness  of  opinion  affects  their 
personal  character.  They  too  often  degenerate  into 
austere  critics  and  bitter  partisans,  and  go  far  to  banish  ' 
from  among  us  love,  friendship,  gratitude,  and  all  the 
fair  humanities  of  life. 

The  fifth  book  carries  us  back  some  twenty  years, 
when  we  find  Cicero  once  more  at  Athens,  taking  his 
afternoon  walk  among  the  deserted  groves  of  the 
Academy.  With  him  are  his  brother  Quintus,  his 
cousin  Lucius,  and  his  friends  Piso  and  Atticus.  The 
scene,  with  its  historic  associations,  irresistibly  carries 
their  minds  back  to  those  illustrious  spirits  who  had 
once  made  the  place  their  own.  Among  these  trees 
Plato  himself  had  walked;  under  the  shadow  of  that 
Porch  Zeno  had  lectured  to  his  disciples ;  *  yonder 
Quintus  points  out  the  “white  peak  of  Colonus,”  de¬ 
scribed  by  Sophocles  in  “those  sweetest  lines;”  while 
glistening  on  the  horizon  were  the  waves  of  the  Phaleric 
harbor,  which  Demosthenes,  Cicero’s  own  great  proto¬ 
type,  had  outvoiced  with  the  thunder  of  his  declama¬ 
tion.  So  countless,  indeed,  are  the  memories  of  the 
past  called  up  by  the  genius  of  the  place,  that  (as  one 
of  the  friends  remarks)  “wherever  we  plant  our  feet, 


*  The  Stoics  took  their  name  from  the  “  stoa,”  or  portico  in 
the  Academy,  where  they  sat  at  lecture,  as  the  Peripatetics  (the 
school  of  Aristotle)  from  the  little  knot  of  listeners  who  followed 
their  master  as  he  walked.  Epicurus’s  school  were  known  as 
the  philosophers  of  “  the  Garden,”  from  the  place  where  he 
taught.  The  “  Old  Academy”  were  the  disciples  of  Plato;  the 
“  New  Academy”  (to  whose  tenets  Cicero  inclined)  revived  the 
great  principle  of  Socrates)  of  affirming  nothing. 


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we  tread  upon  some  history.”  Then  Piso,  speaking  at 
Cicero’s  request,  begs  his  friends  to  turn  from  the  de¬ 
generate  thinkers  of  their  own  day  to  those  giants  of 
philosophy,  from  whose  Writings  all  liberal  learning,  all 
history,  and  all  elegance  of  language  may  be  derived. 
More  than  all,  they  should  turn  to  the  leader  of  the  Per¬ 
ipatetics,  Aristotle,  who  seemed  (like  Lord  Bacon  after 
him)  to  have  taken  all  knowledge  as  his  portion.  Prom 
these,  if  from  no  other  source,  we  may  learn  the  secret 
of  a  happy  life.  But  first  we  must  settle  what  this 
“  chief  good  ”is — this  end  and  object  of  our  efforts — and 
not  be  carried  to  and  fro,  like  ships  without  a  steers¬ 
man,  by  every  blast  of  doctrine. 

If  Epicurus  was  wrong  in  placing  Happiness 

“  In  corporal  pleasure  and  in  careless  ease,” 

no  less  wrong  are  they  who  say  that  “honor”  requires 
pleasure  to  be  added  to  it,  since  they  thus  make  honor 
itself  dishonorable.  And  again,  to  say  with  others 
that  happiness  is  tranquillity  of  mind,  is  simply  to  beg 
the  question. 

Putting,  then,  all  such  theories  aside,  we  bring  the 
argument  to  a  practical  issue.  Self-preservation  is  the 
first  great  principle  of  nature;  and  so  strong  is  this  in¬ 
stinctive  love  of  life,  both  among  men  and  animals,  that 
we  see  even  the  iron-hearted  Stoic  shrink  from  the  ac¬ 
tual  pangs  of  a  voluntary  death.  Then  comes  the  ques¬ 
tion,  What  is  this  nature  that  is  so  precious  to  each  of 
us?  Clearly  it  is  compounded  of  body  and  mind,  each 
with  many  virtues  of  its  own;  but  as  the  mind  should 
rule  the  body,  so  reason,  as  the  dominant  faculty,  should 
rule  the  mind.  Virtue  itself  is  only  “  the  perfection  of 
this  reason,”  and,  call  it  what  you  will,  genius  or  intel¬ 
lect  is  something  divine. 


CICERO. 


143 


Furthermore,  there  is  in  man  a  gradual  progress  of 
reason,  growing  with  liis  growth  until  it  has  reached 
perfection.  Even  in  the  infant  there  are  “as  it  were 
sparks  of  virtue” — half-unconscious  principles  of  love 
and  gratitude;  and  these  germs  bear  fruit,  as  the  child 
develops  into  the  man.  We  have  also  an  instinct  which 
attracts  us  towards  the  pursuit  of  wisdom;  such  is  the 
true  meaning  of  the  Sirens’  voices  in  the  Odyssey,  says 
the  philosopher,  quoting  from  the  poet  of  all  time: 

“  Turn  thy  swift  keel  and  listen  to  our  lay; 

Since  never  pilgrim  to  these  regions  came, 

But  heard  our  sweet  voice  ere  he  sailed  away, 

And  in  his  joy  passed  on,  with  ampler  mind.”  * 

It  is  wisdom,  not  pleasure,  which  they  offer.  Hence 
it  is  that  men  devote  their  days  and  nights  to  literature, 
without  a  thought  of  any  gain  that  may  accrue  from  it; 
and  philosophers  paint  the  serene  delights  of  a  life  of 
contemplation  in  the  islands  of  the  blest. 

Again,  our  minds  can  never  rest.  “Desire for  action 
grows  with  us;”  and  in  action  of  some  sort,  be  it  poli¬ 
tics  or  science,  life  (if  it  is  to  be  life  at  all)  must  be 
passed  by  each  of  us.  Even  the  gambler  must  ply  the 
dice-box,  and  the  man  of  pleasure  seek  excitement  in 
society.  But  in  the  true  life  of  action,  still  the  ruling 
principle  should  be  honor. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  Piso’s  (or  rather  Cicero’s)  vindica¬ 
tion  of  the  old  masters  of  philosophy.  Before  they 
leave  the  place  Cicero  fires  a  parting  shot  at  the  Stoic 
paradox  that  the  “  wise  man  ”  is  always  happy.  How, 
he  pertinently  asks,  can  one  in  sickness  and  poverty, 
blind,  or  childless,  in  exile  or  in  torture,  be  possibly 


*  Odyss.  xii.  185  (Worsley). 


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called  happy,  except  by  a  monstrous  perversion  of  lan¬ 
guage?* 

Here,  somewhat  abruptly,  the  dialogue  closes;  and 
Cicero  pronounces  no  judgment  of  his  own,  but  leaves 
the  great  question  almost  as  perplexed  as  when  he 
started  the  discussion.  But,  of  the  two  antagonistic 
theories  he  leans  rather  to  the  Stoic  than  to  the  Epi¬ 
curean.  Self-sacrifice  and  honor  seem,  to  his  view,  to 
present  a  higher  ideal  than  pleasure  or  expediency. 

II.  “  Academic  Questions.  ” 

Fragments  of  two  editions  of  this  work  have  come 
down  to  us;  for  almost  before  the  first  copy  had  reached 
the  hands  of  his  friend  Atticus,  to  whom  it  was  sent, 
Cicero  had  rewritten  the  whole  on  an  enlarged  scale. 
The  first  book  (as  we  have  it  now)  is  dedicated  to  Varro, 
a  noble  patron  of  art  and  literature.  .  In  his  villa  at 
Cumte  were  spacious  porticoes  and  gardens,  and  a  library 
with  galleries  and  cabinets  open  to  all  comers.  Here, 
on  a  terrace  looking  seawards,  Cicero,  Atticus,  and 
Varro  himself  pass  a  long  afternoon  in  discussing  the 
relative  merits  of  the  old  and  new  Academies;  and 
hence  we  get  the  title  of  the  work.  Varro  takes  the 
lion’s  share  of  the  first  dialogue,  and  shows  how  from 
the  “vast  and  varied  genius  of  Plato”  both  Academics 
and  Peripatetics  drew  all  their  philosophy,  whether  it 
related  to  morals,  to  nature,  or  to  logic.  Stoicism  re¬ 
ceives  a  passing  notice,  as  also  does  what  Varro  con¬ 
siders  the  heresy  of  Theophrastus,  who  strips  virtue  of 
all  its  beauty,  by  denying  that  happiness  depends  upon 
it. 


*  In  a  little  treatise  called  “  Paradoxes,”  Cicero  discusses  sb? 
of  these  scholastic  quibbles  of  the  Stoics. 


CICERO. 


145 


The  second  book  is  dedicated  to  another  illustrious 
name,  the  elder  Lucullus,  not  long  deceased — half¬ 
statesman,  half-dilettante,  “with  almost  as  divine  a 
memory  for  facts,”  says  Cicero,  with  something  of  envy, 
“as  Hortensius  had  for  words.”  This  time  it  is  at  his 
villa,  near  Tusculum,  amidst  scenery,  perhaps  even 
now  the  loveliest  of  all  Italian  landscapes,  that  the 
philosophic  dialogue  takes  place.  Lucullus  condemns 
the  skepticism  of  the  New  Academy — those  reaction¬ 
ists  against  the  dogmatism  of  past  times,  who  disbe¬ 
lieve  their  very  eyesight.  If  (he  says)  we  reject  the 
testimony  of  the  senses,  there  is  neither  body,  nor 
truth,  not'  -argument,  nor  anything  certain  left  us. 
These  perpetual  doubters  destroy  every  ground  of  our 
belief. 

Cicero  ingeniously  defends  this  skepticism,  which 
was,  in  fact,  the  bent  of  his  own  mind.  After  all, 
what  is  our  eyesight  worth?  The  ship  sailing  across 
the  bay  yonder  seems  to  move,  but  to  the  sailors  it  is 
the  shore  that  recedes  from  their  view.  Even  the  sun, 
“which  mathematicians  affirm  to  be  eighteen  times 
larger  than  the  earth,  looks  but  a  foot  in  diameter.” 
And  as  it  is  with  these  things,  so  it  is  with  all  knowl¬ 
edge.  Bold  indeed  must  be  the  man  who  can  define 
the  point  at  which  belief  passes  into  certainty.  Even 
the  “fine  frenzy”  of  the  poet,  his  pictures  of  gods  and 
heroes,  are  as  lifelike  to  himself  and  to  his  hearers  as 
though  he  actually  saw  them. 

“  See  how  Apollo,  fair-haired  god, 

Draws  in  and  bends  his  golden  bow, 

While  on  the  left  fair  Dian  waves  her  torch.” 

*  > 

No— we  are  sure  of  nothing;  and  we  are  happy  if,  like 
§ogrates,  we  only  know  this— that  we  know  nothing, 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Then,  as  if  in  irony,  or  partly  influenced  perhaps  by 
the  advocate’s  love  of  arguing  the  case  both  ways, 
Cicero  demolishes  that  grand  argument  of  design  which 
elsewhere  he  so  carefully  constructs,*  and  reasons  in 
the  very  language  of  materialism:  “  You  assert  that  all 
the  universe  could  not  have  been  so  ingeniously  made 
without  some  godlike  wisdom,  the  majesty  of  which 
you  trace  down  even  to  the  perfection  of  bees  and  ants. 
Why  then  did  the  Deity,  when  he  made  everything 
for  the  sake  of  man,  make  such  a  variety  (for  instance) 
of  venomous  reptiles?  Your  divine  soul  is  a  fiction; 
it  is  better  to  imagine  that  creation  is  the  result  of  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  so  release  the  Deity  from  a  great 
deal  of  hard  work,  and  me  from  fear;  for  which  of  us, 
when  he  thinks  that  he  is  an  object  of  divine  care, 
can  help  feeling  an  awe  of  the  divine  power  day  and 
night?  But  we  do  not  understand  even  our  own 
bodies;  how,  then,  can  we  have  an  eyesight  so 
piercing  as  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  heaven  and 
earth?” 

The  treatise,  however,  is  but  a  disappointing  frag¬ 
ment,  and  the  argument  is  incomplete. 

III.  The  “  Tusculan  Disputations.” 

The  scene  of  this  dialogue  is  Cicero’s  villa  at  Tuscu- 
lum.  There,  in  his  long  gallery,  he  walks  and  dis¬ 
cusses  with  his  friends  the  vexed  questions  of  mortality. 
Was  death  an  evil?  Was  the  soul  immortal?  How 
could  a  man  best  bear  pain  and  the  other  miseries  of 
life?  Was  virtue  any  guaranty  for  happiness? 

Then,  as  now,  death  was  the  great  problem  of  hu¬ 
manity — “to  die  and  go  we  know  not  where.”  The 


*  See  p.  148, 


CICERO. 


147 


old  belief  in  Elysium  and  Tartarus  had  died  away;  as 
Cicero  himself  boldly  puts  it  in  another  place,  such 
things  were  no  longer  even  old  wives’  fables.  Either 
death  brought  an  absolute  unconsciousness,  or  the  soul 
soared  into  space.  “  Lex  non  pana  mors" — '‘Death  is 
a  law,  not  a  penalty”— was  the  ancient  saying.  It  was, 
as  it  were,  the  close  of  a  banquet  or  the  fall  of  the  cur¬ 
tain.  “While  we  are,  death  is  not;  when  death  has 
come,  we  are  not.” 

Cicero  brings  forward  the  testimony  of  past  ages  to 
prove  that  death  is  not  a  mere  annihilation.  Man  can¬ 
not  perish  utterly.  Heroes  are  deified ;  and  the  spirits 
of  the  dead  return  to  us  in  visions  of  the  night.  Some¬ 
how  or  other  (he  says)  there  clings  to  our  minds  a  certain 
presage  of  future  ages;  and  so  we  plant  that  our  chil¬ 
dren  may  reap;  we  toil  that  others  may  enter  into 
our  labors;  and  it  is  this  life  after  death,  the  desire  to 
live  in  men’s  mouths  forever,  which  inspires  the  pa¬ 
triot  and  the  martyr.  Fame  to  the  Roman,  even  more 
than  to  us,  was  “  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds.”  It 
was  so  in  a  special  degree  to  Cicero.  The  instinctive 
sense  of  immortality,  he  argues,  is  strong  within  us, 
and  as,  in  the  words  of  the  English  poet, 

“  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting,” 

so  also  in  death,  the  Roman  said,  though  in  other 
words — 

“  Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither.” 

Believe  not  then,  says  Cicero,  those  old  wives’  tales, 
those  poetic  legends,  the  terrors  of  a  material  hell,  or 
the  joys  of  a  sensual  paradise.  Rather  hold  with  Plato 
that  the  soul  is  an  eternal  principle  of  life,  which  has 


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neither  beginning  nor  end  of  existence;  for  if  it  were 
not  so,  heaven  and  earth  would  be  overset,  and  all  na¬ 
ture  would  stand  at  gaze.  “  Men  say  they  cannot  con¬ 
ceive  or  comprehend  what  the  soul  can  be  distinct 
from  the  body.  As  if,  forsooth,  they  could  compre¬ 
hend  what  it  is,  when  it  is  in  the  bod}r, — its  conforma¬ 
tion,  its  magnitude,  or  its  position  there.  .  .  .  To  me, 
when  I  consider  the  nature  of  the  soul,  there  is  far 
more  difficulty  and  obscurity  in  forming  a  conception  of 
what  the  soul  is  while  in  the  body, — in  a  dwelling  where 
it  seems  so  little  at  home, — than  of  what  it  will  be  when 
it  has  escaped  into  the  free  atmosphere  of  heaven, 
which  seems  its  natural  abode.”*  And  as  the  poet 
seems  to  us  inspired,  as  the  gifts  of  memory  and  elo¬ 
quence  seem  divine,  so  is  the  soul  itself,  in  its  simple 
essence,  a  god  dwelling  in  the  breast  of  each  of  us. 
What  else  can  be  this  power  which  enables  us  to  recol¬ 
lect  the  past,  to  foresee  the  future,  to  understand  the 
present? 

There  follows  a  passage  on  the  argument  from  design 
which  anticipates  that  fine  saying  of  Voltaire:  “Si 
Dieu  n’existait  pas,  il  faudrait  l’inventer;  mais  toute 
la  nature  crie  qu’il  existe.”  “  The  heavens,”  says  even 
the  heathen  philosopher,  “declare  the  glory  of  God.” 
Look  on  the  sun  and  the  stars;  look  on  the  alternation 
of  the  seasons  and  the  changes  of  day  and  night;  look 
again  at  the  earth,  bringing  forth  her  fruits  for  the  use 
of  men;  the  multitude  of  cattle;  and  man  himself, 
made  as  it  were  to  contemplate  and  adore  the  heavens 
and  the  gods.  Look  on  all  these  things,  and  doubt  not 
that  there  is  some  Being,  though  you  see  him  not,  who 
has  created  and  presides  over  the  world. 


*'I.  c.  22. 


CICERO . 


149 


“Imitate,  therefore,  the  end  of  Socrates;  who,  with 
the  fatal  cup  in  his  hands,  spoke  with  the  serenity  of 
one  not  forced  to  die,  but,  as  it  were,  ascending  into 
heaven;  for  he  thought  that  the  souls  of  men,  when 
they  left  the  body  went  by  different  roads;  those  pol¬ 
luted  by  vice  and  unclean  living  took  a  road  wide 
of  that  which  led  to  the  assembly  of  the  gods;  while 
those  who  had  kept  themselves  pure,  and  on  earth  had 
taken  a  divine  life  as  their  model,  found  it  easy  to 
return  to  those  beings  from  whence  they  came.”  Or 
learn  a  lesson  from  the  swans,  who,  with  a  prophetic 
instinct,  leave  this  world  with  joy  and  singing.  Yet 
do  not  anticipate  the  time  of  death,  “for  the  Deity 
forbids  us  to  depart  hence  without  his  summons;  but, 
on  just  cause  given  (as  to  Socrates  and  Cato),  gladly 
should  we  exchange  our  darkness  for  that  light,  and, 
like  men  not  breaking  prison  but  released  by  the  law, 
leave  our  chains  with  joy,  as  having  been  discharged 
by  God.” 

The  feeling  of  these  ancients  with  regard  to  suicide, 
we  must  here  remember,  was  very  different  from  our 
own.  There  was  no  distinct  idea  of  the  sanctity  of  life; 
no  social  stigma  and  consequent  suffering  were  brought 
on  the  family  of  the  suicide.  Stoic  and  Epicurean  phil¬ 
osophers  alike  upheld  it  as  a  lawful  remedy  against  the 
pangs  of  disease,  the  dotage  of  old  age,  or  the  caprices 
of  a  tyrant.  Every  man  might,  they  contended,  choose 
his  own  route  on  the  last  great  journey,  and  sleep  well, 
when  he  grew  wearied  out  with  life’s  fitful  fever.  The 
door  was  always  open  (said  Epictetus)  when  the  play 
palled  on  the  senses.  You  should  quit  the  stage  with 
dignity,  nor  drain  the  flask  to  the  dregs.  Some  phil¬ 
osophers,  it  is  true,  protested  against  it  as  mere  de¬ 
vice  of  cowardice  to  avoid  pain,  and  as  a  failure  in  our 


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duties  as  good  citizens.  Cicero,  in  one  of  his  latest 
works,  again  quotes  with  approval  the  opinion  of  Py¬ 
thagoras,  that  “no  man  should  abandon  his  post  in 
life  without  the  orders  of  the  Great  Commander.”  But 
at  Rome  suicide  had  been  glorified  by  a  long  roll  of 
illustrious  names,  and  the  protest  was  made  in  vain. 

But  why,  continues  Cicero,  why  add  to  the  miseries 
of  life  by  brooding  over  death?  Is  life  to  any  of  us 
such  unmixed  pleasure  even  while  it  lasts?  Which  of 
us  can  tell  whether  he  be  taken  away  from  good  or 
from  evil?  As  our  birth  is  but  “  a  sleep  and  a  forget¬ 
ting,”  so  our  death  may  be  but  a  second  sleep,  as  last¬ 
ing  as  Endymion’s.  Why, 'then,  call  it  wretched,  even 
if  we  die  before  our  natural  time?  Nature  has  lent  us 
life,  without  fixing  the  day  of  payment;  and  uncer¬ 
tainty  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  its  tenure.  Compare 
our  longest  life  with  eternity,  and  it  is  as  short-lived  as 
that  of  those  ephemeral  insects  whose  life  is  measured 
by  a  summer  day;  and  “  who,  when  the  sun  sets,  have 
reached  old  age.  ” 

Let  us,  then,  base  our  happiness  on  strength  of 
mind,  on  a  contempt  of  earthly  pleasures,  and  on  the 
strict  observance  of  virtue.  Let  us  recall  the  last  noble 
words  of  Socrate  to  his  judges.  “The  death,”  said 
he,  “to  which  you  condemn  me,  I  count  a  gain  rather 
than  a  loss.  Either  it  is  a  dreamless  sleep  that  knows 
no  waking,  or  it  carries  me  where  I  may  converse  with 
the  spirits  of  the  illustrious  dead.  1  go  to  death,  you 
to  life ;  but  which  of  us  is  going  the  better  way,  God 
only  knows.” 

No  man,  then,  dies  too  soon  who  has  run  a  course 
of  perfect  virtue;  for  glory  follows  like  a  shadow  in 
the  wake  of  such  a  life.  Welcome  death,  therefore, 
as  a  blessed  deliverance  from  evil,  sent  by  the  special 


CICERO. 


151 


favor  of  the  gods,  who  thus  bring  us  safely  across  a  sea 
of  troubles  to  an  eternal  haven. 

The  second  topic  which  Cicero  and  his  friends  dis¬ 
cuss  is,  the  endurance  of  pain.  Is  it  an  unmixed  evil? 
Can  anything  console  the  sufferer?  Cicero  at  once  con¬ 
demns  the  sophistry  of  Epicurus.  The  wise  man  can¬ 
not  pretend  indifference  to  pain;  it  is  enough  that  he 
endure  it  with  courage,  since,  beyond  all  question,  it  is 
sharp,  bitter,  and  hard  to  bear.  And  what  is  this  cour¬ 
age?  Partly  excitement,  partly  the  impulse  of  honor 
or  of  shame,  partly  the  habituation  which  steels  the  en¬ 
durance  of  the  gladiator.  Keep,  therefore — this  is  the 
conclusion — stern  restraint  over  the  feminine  elements 
of  your  soul,  and  learn  not  only  to  despise  the  attacks 
of  pain,  but  also 

“  The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune.” 

From  physical,  the  discussion  naturally  passes  to 
mental,  suffering.  For  grief,  as  well  as  for  pain,  he 
prescribes  the  remedy  of  the  Stoics — azquanimitas — 
“a  calm  serenity  of  mind.”  The  wise  man,  ever  serene 
and  composed,  is  moved  neither  by  pain  or  sorrow,  by 
fear  or  desire.  He  is  equally  undisturbed  by  the  malice 
of  enemies  or  the  inconstancy  of  fortune.  But  what 
consolation  can  we  bring  to  ease  the  pain  of  the 
Epicurean?  “  Put  a  nosegay  to  his  nostrils — burn  per¬ 
fumes  before  him — crown  him  with  roses  and  wood¬ 
bine!”  But  parfumes  and  garlands  can  do  little  in 
such  case;  pleasures  may  divert,  but  they  can  scarcely 
console. 

Again,  the  Cyrenaics  bring  at  the  best  but  Job’s 
comfort.  No  man  will  bear  his  misfortunes  the  more 
lightly  by  bethinking  himself  that  they  are  unavoid¬ 
able — that  others  have  suffered  before  him — that  pain 


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is  part  and  parcel  of  the  ills  which  flesh  is  heir  to. 
Why  grieve  at  all?  Why  feed  your  misfortune  by 
dwelling  on  it?  Plunge  rather  into  active  life  and 
forget  it,  remembering  that  excessive  lamentation  over 
the  trivial  accidents  of  humanity  is  alike  unmanly  and 
unnecessary.  And  as  it  is  with  grief,  so  it  is  with 
envy,  lust,  anger,  and  those  other  “  perturbations  of 
the  mind  ”  which  the  Stoic  Zeno  rightly  declares  to  be 
“repugnant  to  reason  and  nature.”  From  such  dis¬ 
quietude  it  is  the  wise  man  who  is  free. 

The  fifth  and  last  book  discusses  the  great  question, 
Is  virtue  of  itself  sufficient  to  make  life  happy?  The 
bold  conclusion  is,  that  it  is  sufficient.  Cicero  is  not 
content  with  the  timid  qualifications  adopted  by  the 
school  of  the  Peripatetics,  who  say  one  moment  that 
external  advantages  and  worldly  prosperity  are  nothing, 
and  then  again  admit  that,  though  man  may  be  happy 
without  them,  he  is  happier  with  them, — which  is 
making  the  real  liappinness  imperfect  after  all.  Men 
differ  in  their  views  of  life.  As  in  the  great  Olympic 
games,  the  throng  are  attracted,  some  by  desire  of  gain, 
some  by  the  crown  of  wild  olive,  some  merely  by  the 
spectacle;  so,  in  the  race  of  life,  we  are  all  slaves  to 
some  ruling  idea,  it  may  be  glory,  or  money,  or  wis¬ 
dom.  But  they  alone  can  be  pronounced  happy  whose 
minds  are  like  some  tranquil  sea — “alarmed  by  no 
fears,  wasted  by  no  griefs,  inflamed  by  no  lusts,  ener¬ 
vated  by  no  relaxing  pleasures, — and  such  serenity 
virtue  alone  can  produce.” 

These  “Disputations”  have  always  been  highly  ad¬ 
mired.  But  their  popularity  was  greater  in  times  when 
Cicero’s  Greek  originals  were  less  read  or  understood. 
Erasmus  carried  his  admiration  of  this  treatise  to  en¬ 
thusiasm.  “I  cannot  doubt,”  he  says,  “but  that  the 


CICERO. 


153 


blind  from  which  such  teaching  flowed  was  inspired  in 
some  sort  by  divinity.” 

IY.  The  Treatise  “  On  Moral  Duties.” 

The  treatise  “De  Officiis,”  known  as  Cicero’s  “  Offi¬ 
ces,  ”  to  which  we  pass  next,  is  addressed  b}r  the  author  to 
his  son,  w7hile  studying  at  Athens  under  Cratippus; 
possibly  in  imitation  of  Aristotle,  who  inscribed  his 
Ethics  to  his  son  Nicomachus.  It  is  a  treatise  on  the 
duties  of  a  gentleman — “the  noblest  present,”  says  a 
modern  writer,  “ever  made  by  parent  to  a  child.”* 
Written  in  a  far  higher  tone  than  Lord  Chesterfield’s 
letters,  though  treating  of  the  same  subject,  it  proposes 
and  answers  multifarious  questions  which  must  occur 
continually  to  the  modern  Christian  as  well  as  to  the  ~ 
ancient  philosopher.  “  What  makes  an  action  right  or 
wrong?  What  is  a  duty?  What  is  expediency?  How 
shall  I  learn  to  choose  between  my  principles  and  my 
interests?  And  lastly  (a  point  of  casuistry  which  must 
sometimes  perplex  the  strictest  conscience),  of  two 
‘  things  honest, ’f  which  is  most  so?” 

The  key-note  of  his  discourse  throughout  is  Honor; 
and  the  word  seems  to  carry  with  it  that  magic  force 
which  Burke  attributed  to  chivalry— “the  unbouglit 
grace  of  life — the  nurse  of  heroic  sentiment  and  manly 
enterprise.”  Noblesse  oblige , — and  there  is  no  state  of 
life,  says  Cicero,  without  its  obligations.  In  their  due 
discharge  consists  all  the  nobility,  and  in  their  neglect 


*  Kelsall. 

+  The  English  “Honesty”  and  “Honor”  alike  fail  to  convey 
the  full  force  of  the  Latin  honestus.  The  word  expresses  a  pro¬ 
gress  of  thought  from  comeliness  and  grace  of  person  to  a  noble 
and  graceful  character— all  whose  works  are  done  in  honesty 

and  honor. 


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all  the  disgrace,  of  character.  There  should  be  no 
selfish  devotion  to  private  interests.  We  are  born  not 
for  ourselves  only,  but  for  our  kindred  and  fatherland. 
We  owe  duties  not  only  to  those  who  have  benefited 
but  to  those  who  have  wronged  us.  We  should  render 
to  all  their  due;  and  justice  is  due  even  to  the  lowest  of 
mankind:  what,  for  instance  (he  says  with  a  hardness 
which  jars  upon  our  better  feelings),  can  be  lower  than 
a  slave?  Honor  is  that  “unbought  grace’'  which  adds  a 
lustre  to  every  action.  In  society  it  produces  courtesy 
of  manners;  in  business,  under  the  form  of  truth,  it  es¬ 
tablishes  public  credit.  Again,  as  equity,  it  smooths 
the  harsh  features  of  the  law.  In  war  it  produces  that 
moderation  and  good  faith  between  contending  armies 
which  are  the  surest  basis  of  a  lasting  peace.  And  so 
in  honor  are  centred  the  elements  of  all  the  virtues — 
wisdom  and  justice,  fortitude  and  temperance;  and 
“if,”  he  says,  reproducing  the  noble  words  of  Plato,  as 
applied  by  him  to  Wisdom,  “  this  ‘  Honor’  could  but  be 
seen  in  her  full  beauty  by  mortal  eyes,  the  whole  world 
would  fall  in  love  with  her.” 

Such  is  the  general  spirit  of  this  treatise,  of  which 
only  the  briefest  sketch  can  be  given  in  these  pages. 

Cicero  bases  honor  on  our  inherent  excellence  of 
nature,  paying  the  same  noble  tribute  to  humanity  as 
Kant  some  centuries  after:  “On  earth  there  is  nothing 
great  but  man;  in  man  there  is  nothing  great  but 
mind.”  Truth  is  a  law  of  our  nature.  Man  is  only 
“lower  than  the  angels;”  and  to  him  belong  prero¬ 
gatives  which  mark  him  off  from  the  brute  creation — 
the  faculties  of  reason  and  discernment,  the  sense  of 
beauty,  and  the  love  of  law  and  order.  And  from  this 
arises  that  fellow-feeling  which,  in  one  sense,  “makes 
the  whole  world  kin” — the  spirit  of  Terence’s  famous 


CICERO. 


155 


line,  which  Cicero  notices  (applauded  on  its  recitation, 
as  Augustin  tells  us,  by  the  cheers  of  the  entire  audi¬ 
ence  in  the  theatre) — 

“  Homo  sum— humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto;  ”  * 

for  (he  continues)  “all  men  by  nature  love  one  another, 
and  desire  an  intercourse  of  words  and  action.  ”  Hence 
spring  the  family  affections,  friendship,  and  social  ties ; 
hence  also  that  general  love  of  combination,  which 
forms  a  striking  feature  of  the  present  age,  resulting 
in  clubs,  trades-unions,  companies,  and  generally  in 
what  Mr.  Carlyle  terms  “swarmery.” 

Next  to  truth,  justice  is  the  great  duty  of  mankind. 
Cicero  at  once  condemns  “communism”  in  matters  of 
property.  Ancient  immemorial  seizure,  conquest,  or 
compact,  may  give  a  title;  but  “no  man  can  say  that 
he  has  anything  his  own  by  a  right  of  nature.”  In¬ 
justice  springs  from  avarice  or  ambition,  the  thirst  of 
riches  or  of  empire,  and  is  the  more  dangerous  as  it 
appears  in  the  more  exalted  spirits,  causing  a  dissolu¬ 
tion  of  all  ties  and  obligations.  And  here  he  takes  oc¬ 
casion  to  instance  “  that  late  most  shameless  attempt 
of  Caesar’s  to  make  himself  master  of  Rome.” 

There  is,  besides,  an  injustice  of  omission.  You 
may  wrong  your  neighbor  by  seeing  him  wronged 
without  interfering.  Cicero  takes  the  opportunity  of 
protesting  strongly  against  the  selfish  policy  of  those 
lovers  of  ease  and  peace,  who,  “from  a  desire  of 
furthering  their  own  interests,  or  else  from  a  churlish 
temper,  profess  that  they  mind  nobody’s  business  but 
their  own,  in  order  that  they  may  seem  to  be  men  of 
strict  integrity  and  to  injure  none,”  and  thus  shrink 


*  “I  am  a  man— I  hold  that  nothing  which  concerns  mankind 
can  be  matter  of  unconcern  to  me.” 


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from  taking  their  part  in  “the  fellowship  of  life.”  He 
would  have  had  small  patience  with  our  modern  doc¬ 
trine  of  non-intervention  and  neutrality  in  nations  any 
more  than  in  men.  Suck  conduct  arises  (he  says) 
from  the  false  logic  with  which  men  cheat  their  con 
science;  arguing  reversely,  that  whatever  is  the  best 
policy  is— honesty. 

There  are  two  ways,  it  must  be  remembered,  in 
which  one  man  may  injure  another — force  and  fraud; 
but  as  the  lion  is  a  nobler  creature  than  the  fox,  so 
open  violence  seems  less  odious  than  secret  villany. 
No  character  is  so  justly  hateful  as 

“  A  rogue  in  grain, 

Veneered  with  sanctimonious  theory.” 

Nations  have  their  obligations  as  well  as  individuals, 
and  war  has  its  laws  as  well  as  peace.  The  struggle 
should  be  carried  on  in  a  generous  temper,  and  not  in 
the  spirit  of  extermination,  when  “it  has  sometimes 
seemed  a  question  between  two  hostile  nations,  not 
which  should  remain  a  conqueror,  but  which  should 
remain  a  nation  at  all.  ” 

No  mean  part  of  justice  consists  in  liberality,  and 
this,  too,  has  its  duties.  It  is  an  important  question, 
how,  and  when,  and  to  whom,  we  should  give?  It  is 
possible  to  be  generous  at  another  person’s  expense: 
it  is  possible  to  injure  the  recipient  by  mistimed 
liberality;  or  to  ruin  one’s  fortune  by  open  house  and 
prodigal  hospitality.  A  great  man’s  bounty  (as  he 
says  in  another  place)  should  be  a  common  sanctuary 
for  the  needy.  “To  ransom  captives  and  enrich  the 
meaner  folk  is  a  nobler  form  of  generosity  than  pro¬ 
viding  wild  beasts  or  shows  of  gladiators  to  amuse  the 
mob.”  Charity  should  begin  at  home;  for  relations 


CICERO. 


157 


and  friends  bold  tlie  first  place  in  our  affections;  but 
tbe  circle  of  our  good  deeds  is  not  to  be  narrowed 
by  tbe  ties  of  blood,  or  sect,  or  party,  and  “our 
country  comprehends  tbe  endearments  of  all.”  We 
should  act  in  tbe  spirit  of  the  ancient  law — “Thou 
sbalt  keep  no  man  from  ! he  running  stream,  or  from 
lighting  bis  torch  at  thy  hearth,”  Our  liberality 
should  be  really  liberal, — like  that  charity  which  Jer¬ 
emy  Taylor  describes  as  “  friendship  to  all  the  world.” 

Another  component  principle  of  this  honor  is  cour¬ 
age,  or  “greatness  of  soul,”  which  (continues  Cicero) 
has  been  well  defined  by  the  Stoics  as  “  a  virtue  con¬ 
tending  for  justice  and  honesty;”  and  its  noblest  form 
is  a  generous  contempt  for  ordinary  objects  of  ambi¬ 
tion,  not  “from  a  vain  or  fantastic  humor,  but  from 
solid  principles  of  reason.”  The  lowest  and  commoner 
form  of  courage  is  the  mere  animal  virtue  of  the 
fighting-cock. 

But  a  character  should  not  only  be  excellent, — it 
should  be  graceful.  In  gesture  and  deportment  men 
should  strive  to  acquire  that  dignified  grace  of  manners 
“which  adds  as  it  were  a  lustre  to  our  lives.”  They 
should  avoid  affectation  and  eccentricity;  “not  to  care 
a  farthing  what  people  think  of  us  is  a  sign  not  so 
much  of  pride  as  of  immodesty.”  The  want  of  tact  — 
the  saying  and  doing  things  at  the  wrong  time  and 
place — produces  the  same  discord  in  society  as  a  false 
note  in  music;  and  harmony  of  character  is  of  more 
consequence  than  harmony  of  sounds.  There  is  a 
grace  in  words  as  well  as  in  conduct;  we  should  avoid 
unseasonable  jests,  “and  not  lard  our  talk  with  Greek 
quotations.”* 


*  This  last  precept  Ceicero  must  have  considered  did  not  apply 


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In  the  path  of  life,  each  should  follow  the  bent  of 
his  own  genius,  so  far  as  it  is  innocent — 

“Honor  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise; 

Act  well  your  part— there  all  the  honor  lies.” 

Nothing  is  so  difficult  (says  Cicero)  as  the  choice  of 
a  profession,  inasmuch  as  ‘  ‘  the  choice  has  commonly 
to  be  made  when  the  judgment  is  weakest.”  Some 
tread  in  their  father’s  steps,  others  beat  out  a  fresh 
line  of  their  own;  and  (he  adds,  perhaps  not  without 
a  personal  reference)  this  is  generally  the  case  with 
those  born  of  mean  parents,  who  propose  to  carve 
their  own  way  in  the  world.  But  the  parvenu  of 
Arpinum — the  “new  man,”  as  aristocratic  jealousy 
always  loved  to  call  him — is  by  no  means  insensible 
to  the  true  honors  of  ancestry.  “The  noblest  inher¬ 
itance,”  he  says,  “that  can  ever  be  left  by  a  father  to 
his  son,  far  excelling  that  of  lands  and  houses,  is  the 
fame  of  his  virtues  and  glorious  actions;”  and  saddest 
of  all  sights  is  that  of  a  noble  house  dragged  through 
the  mire  by  some  degenerate  descendant,  so  as  to  be  a 
by-word  among  the  populace, — “which  may”  (he  con¬ 
cludes)  “  be  justly  said  of  but  too  many  in  out  times.” 

The  Roman’s  view  of  the  comparative  dignity  of 
professions  and  occupations  is  interesting,  because  his 
prejudices  (if  they  be  prejudices)  have  so  long  main¬ 
tained  their  ground  amongst  us  moderns.  Tax-gather¬ 
ers  and  usurers  are  as  unpopular  now  as  ever — the 
latter  very  deservedly  so.  Retail  trade  is  despicable, 
we  are  told,  and  “all  mechanics  are  by  their  profes¬ 
sion  mean.”  Especially  such  trades  as  minister  to 
mere  appetite  or  luxury — butchers,  fishmongers,  and 


to  letter-writing,  otherwise  he  was  a  notorious  offender  against 
his  own  rule, 


CICERO. 


159 


cooks;  perfumers,  dancers,  and  suchlike.  But  medi¬ 
cine,  architecture,  education,  farming,  and  even  whole¬ 
sale  business,  especially  importation  and  exportation, 
are  the  professions  of  a  gentleman.  “But  if  the  mer¬ 
chant,  satisfied  with  his  profits,  shall  leave  the  seas  and 
from  the  harbor  step  into  a  landed  estate,  such  a  man 
seems  justly  deserving  of  praise.”  We  seem  to  be 
reading  the  verdict  of  modern  English  society  delivered 
by  anticipation  two  thousand  years  ago. 

The  section  ends  with  earnest  advice  to  all,  that  they 
should  put  their  principles  into  practice.  “The  deepest 
knowledge  of  nature  is  but  a  poor  and  imperfect  busi¬ 
ness,  unless  it  proceeds  into  action.  As  justice  con¬ 
sists  in  no  abstract  theory,  but  in  upholding  society 
among  men, — as  “greatness  of  soul  itself,  if  it  be  iso¬ 
lated  from  the  duties  of  social  life,  is  but  a  kind  of  un¬ 
couth  churlishness,” — so  it  is  each  citizen’s  duty  to  leave 
his  philosophic  seclusion  of  a  cloister,  and  take  his  place 
in  public  life,  if  the  times  demand  it,  “though  he  be 
able  to  number  the  stars  and  measure  out  the  world.” 

The  same  practical  vein  is  continued  in  the  next 
book.  What,  after  all,  are  a  man’s  real  interests?  what 
line  of  conduct  will  best  advance  the  main  end  of  his 
life?  Generally,  men  make  the  fatal  mistake  of  assum¬ 
ing  that  honor  must  always  clash  with  their  interests ; 
while  in  reality,  says  Cicero,  “  they  would  obtain  their 
ends  best,  not  by  knavery  and  underhand  dealing,  but 
by  justice  and  integrity.”  The  right  is  identical  with 
the  expedient.  “  The  way  to  secure  the  favor  of  the 
gods  is  by  upright  dealing;  and  next  to  the  gods,  noth¬ 
ing  contributes  so  much  to  men’s  happiness  as  men 
themselves.”  It  is  labor  and  co  operation  which  have 
given  us  all  the  goods  which  we  possess. 

Since,  then,  man  is  the  best  friend  to  man,  and  also 


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Ms  most  formidable  enemy,  an  important  question  to 
be  discussed  is  the  secret  of  influence  and  popularity — 
“the  art  of  winning  men’s  affections.”  For  to  govern 
by  bribes  or  by  force  is  not  really  to  govern  at  all;  and 
no  obedience  based  on  fear  can  be  lasting — “  no  force 
of  power  can  bear  up  long  against  a  current  of  public 
hate.”  Adventurers  who  ride  rough -shod  over  law  (he 
is  thinking  again  of  Caesar) have  but  a  short-lived  reign; 
and  “liberty,  when  she  has  been  chained  up  awhile, 
bites  harder  when  let  loose  than  if  she  had  never  been 
chained  at  all.”*  Most  happy  was  that  just  and  moder¬ 
ate  government  of  Rome  in  earlier  times,  when  she  was 
“the  port  and  refuge  for  princes  and  nations  in  their 
hour  of  need.”  Three  requisites  go  to  form  that  popu¬ 
lar  character  which  has  a  just  influence  over  others: 
we  must  win  men’s  love,  we  must  deserve  their  confi¬ 
dence,  and  we  must  inspire  them  with  an  admiration 
for  our  abilities.  The  shortest  and  most  direct  road  to 
real  influence  is  that  which  Socrates  recommends — “  for 
a  man  to  be  that  which  he  wishes  men  to  take  him 
for.”  f 

Then  follow  some  maxims  which  show  how  thor¬ 
oughly  conservative  was  the  policy  of  our  philosopher. 
The  security  of  property  he  holds  to  be  the  security 
of  the  state.  There  must  be  no  playing  with  vested 


*  It  is  curious  to  note  how,  throughout  the  whole  of  this  argu¬ 
ment,  Cicero,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  works  upon 
the  princi  pie  that  the  highest  life  is  the  political  life,  and  that 
the  highest  object  a  man  can  set  before  him  is  the  obtain¬ 
ing,  by  legitimate  means,  influence  and  authority  among  his 
fellow-citizens. 

t  “  Not  being  less  but  more  than  all 
The  gentleness  he  seemed  to  be.” 

—Tennyson:  “  In  Memoriam.” 


CICERO. 


161 


rights,  no  unequal  taxation,  no  attempt  to  bring  all 
things  to  a  level,  no  canceling  of  debts  and  redistribu¬ 
tion  of  land  (lie  is  thinking  of  the  baits  held  out  by 
Catiline),  none  of  those  traditional  devices  for  winning 
favor  with  the  people  which  tend  to  destroy  that 
social  copeord  and  unity  which  make  a  common¬ 
wealth.  ‘‘What  reason  is  there,”  he  asks,  “why, 
when  I  have  bought,  built,  repaired,  and  laid  out  much 
money,  another  shall  come  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  it?” 

And  as  a  man  should  be  careful  of  the  interests  of  the 
social  body,  so  he  should  be  of  his  own.  But  Cicero 
feels  that  in  descending  to  such  questions  he  is 
somewhat  losing  sight  of  his  dignity  as  a  moralist. 
“  You  will  find  all  this  thoroughly  discussed,”  he  says 
to  his  son,  “in  Xenophon’s  (Economics  —  a  book 
which,  when  I  was  just  your  age,  I  translated  from  the 
Greek  into  Latin.”  [One  wonders  whether  young 
Marcus  took  the  hint.]  “And  if  you  want  instruction 
in  money  matters  there  are  gentlemen  sitting  on  the 
Exchange  who  will  teach  you  much  ^better  than  the 
philosophers.” 

The  last  book  opens  with  a  saying  of  the  elder 
Cato’s,  which  Cicero  much  admires,  though  he  says 
modestly  that  he  was  never  able  in  his  own  case  quite 
to  realize  it — “I  am  never  less  idle  than  when  I  am 
idle,  and  never  less  alone  than  when  alone.”  Retire¬ 
ment  and  solitude  are  excellent  things,  Cicero  always 
declares;  generally  contriving  at  the  same  time  to  make 
it  plain,  as  he  does  here,  that  his  own  heart  is  in  the 
world  of  public  life.  But  at  least  it  gives  him  time  for 
writing.  He  “  has  written  more  in  this  short  time,  since 
the  fall  of  the  Commonwealth,  than  in  all  the  years 
during  which  it  stood.” 

He  here  resolves  the  question,  If  honor  and  interest 


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seem  to  clash,  which  is  to  give  wTay?  Or  rather,  it  has 
been  resolved  already;  if  the  right  he  always  the  ex¬ 
pedient,  the  opposition  is  seeming,  not  real.  He  puts 
a  great  many  questions  of  casuistry,  but  it  all  amounts 
to  this:  the  good  man  keeps  his  oath,  “though  it  were 
to  his  own  hinderance.”  But  it  is  never  to  his  hin- 
derance;  for  a  violation  of  his  conscience  would  be  the 
greatest  hinderance  of  all. 

In  this  treatise,  more  than  in  any  of  his  other  phil¬ 
osophical  works,  Cicero  inclines  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Stoics.  In  the  others,  he  is  rather  the  seeker  after 
truth  than  the  maintainer  of  a  system.  His  is  the 
critical  eclecticism  of  the  “Hew  Academy” — the  spirit 
so  prevalent  in  our  own  day,  which  fights  against  the 
shackles  of  dogmatism.  And  with  all  his  respect  for 
the  nobler  side  of  Stoicism,  he  is  fully  alive  to  its  de¬ 
fects  ;  though  it  was  not  given  to  him  to  see,  as  Milton 
saw  after  him,  the  point  wherein  that  great  system  really 
failed— the  “philosophic  pride”  which  was  the  be¬ 
setting  sin  of  all  disciples  in  the  school,  from  Cato  to 
Seneca : 

“  Ignorant  of  themselves;  of  God  much  more, 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

Much  of  the  soul  they  talk,  hut  all  awry; 

And  in  themselves  seek  virtue,  and  to  themselves 
All  glory  arrogate, — to  God  give  none; 

Rather  accuse  Him  under  usual  names. 

Fortune,  or  Fate,  as  one  regardless  quite 
Of  mortal  things.”  * 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this,  such  men  were  as  the  salt  of  the 
earth  in  a  corrupt  age;  and  as  we  find,  throughout  the 
more  modern  pages  of  history,  great  preachers  de¬ 
nouncing  wickedness  in  high  places, — Bourdaloue  and 


*  Paradise  Regained. 


CICERO . 


168 


Massillon  pouring  their  eloquence  into  the  heedless  ears 
of  Louis  XIY.  and  his  courtiers — Sherlock  and  Tillotson 
declaiming  from  the  pulpit  in  such  stirring  accents  that 
‘‘even  the  indolent  Charles  roused  himself  to  listen,  and 
the  fastidious  Buckingham  forgot  to  sneer”  * — so  too,  do 
we  find  these  “monks  of  heathendom,”  as  the  Stoics 
have  been  not  unfairly  called,  protesting  in  their  day 
against  that  selfish  profligacy  which  was  fast  sapping  all 
morality  in  the  Roman  empire.  No  doubt  (as  Mr. 
Lecky  takes  care  to  tell  us),  their  high  principles  were 
not  always  consistent  with  their  practice  (alas!  whose 
are?);  Cato  may  have  ill-used  his  slaves,  Sallust  may  have 
been  rapacious,  and  Seneca  wanting  in  personal  courage. 
Yet  it  was  surely  something  to  have  set  up  a  noble  ideal, 
though  they  might  not  attain  to  it  themselves,  and  in 
“  that  hideous  carnival  of  vice”  to  have  kept  themselves, 
so  far  as  they  might,  unspotted  from  the  world.  Certain 
it  is  that  no  other  ancient  sect  ever  came  so  near  the 
light  of  revelation.  Passages  from  Seneca,  from 
Epictetus,  from  Marcus  Aurelius,  sound  even  now  like 
fragments  of  the  inspired  writings.  The  Unknown 
God,  whom  they  ignorantly  worshiped  as  the  Soul  or 
Reason  of  the  World,  is — in  spite  of  Milton’s  strictures 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  their  philosophy.  Let  us 
listen  for  a  moment  to  their  language.  “  Prayer  should 
be  only  for  the  good.”  “  Men  should  act  according  to 
the  spirit,  and  not  according  to  the  letter  of  their  faith.” 
“  Wouldst  thou  propitiate  the  gods?  Be  good:  he  has 
worshiped  them  sufficiently  who  has  imitated  them.” 
It  was  from  a  Stoic  poet,  Aratus,  that  St.  Paul  quoted 
the  great  truth  which  was  the  rational  argument  against 
idolatry — “For  we  are  also  His  offspring,  and  *  (so  the 


*  Macaulay. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


original  passage  concludes)  “we  alone  possess  a  voice, 
which  is  the  image  of  reason.”  It  is  in  another  poet  of 
the  same  school  that  we  find  what  are  perhaps  the 
noblest  lines  in  all  Latin  poetry.  Persius  concludes  his 
Satire  on  the  common  hypocrisy  of  those  prayers  and 
offerings  to  the  gods  which  were  but  a  service  of  the  lips 
and  hands,  in  words  of  which  an  English  rendering  may 
give  the  sense  but  not  the  beauty: — “  Nay,  then,  let  us 
offer  to  the  gods  that  which  the  debauched  sons  of  great 
Messala  can  never  bring  on  their  broad  chargers, — a 
soul  wherein  the  laws  of  God  and  man  are  blended, — a 
heart  pure  to  its  inmost  depths, — a  breast  ingrained 
with  a  noble  sense  of  honor.  Let  me  but  bring  these 
with  me  to  the  altar,  and  I  care  not  though  my  offering 
be  a  handful  of  corn.”  With  these  grand  words,  fit 
precursors  of  a  purer  creed  to  come,  we  may  take  our 
leave  of  the  Stoics,  remarking  how  thoroughly,  even  in 
their  majestic  egotism,  they  represented  the  moral  force 
of  the  nation  among  whom  they  flourished;  a  nation, 
says  a  modern  preacher,  “  whose  legendary  and  historic 
heroes  could  thrust  their  hand  into  the  flame,  and  see  it 
consumed  without  a  nerve  shrinking;  or  come  from 
captivity  on  parole,  advise  their  countrymen  against  a 
peace,  and  then  go  back  to  torture  and  certain  death;  or 
devote  themselves  by  solemn  self-sacrifice  like  the  Decii. 
The  world  must  bow  before  such  men;  for,  uncon¬ 
sciously,  here  was  a  form  of  the  spirit  of  the  Crosse- 
self -surrender,  unconquerable  fidelity  to  duty,  sacrifice 
for  others.”  * 

Portions  of  three  treatises  by  Cicero  upon  Political  Philos¬ 
ophy  have  come  down  to  us :  1.  “  De  Republica  a  dialogue  on 
Government,  founded  chiefly  on  the  “Republic”  of  Plato; 


*  F.  W.  Robertson,  Sermons,  i.  218. 


(jivjbuo. 


165 


2.  “De  Legibus”;  a  discussion  on  Law  in  the  abstract,  and  on 
national  systems  of  legislation ;  3.  “  De  Jure  Civili” ;  of  which  last 
only  a  few  fragments  exist.  His  historical  works  have  all 
perished. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

CICERO’S  RELIGION. 

It  is  difficult  to  separate  Cicero’s  religion  from  his 
philosophy.  In  both  he  was  a  skeptic,  but  in  the  better 
sense  of  the  word.  His  search  after  truth  was  in  no 
sneering  or  incredulous  spirit,  but  in  that  of  a  reverent 
inquirer.  We  must  remember,  in  justice  to  him,  that 
an  earnest-minded  man  in  his  day  could  hardly  take 
higher  ground  than  that  of  the  sceptic.  The  old  polythe¬ 
ism  was  dying  out  in  everything  but  in  name,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  take  its  place. 

His  religious  belief,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  it,  was 
rather  negative  than  positive.  In  the  speculative  trea¬ 
tise  which  he  has  left  us,  “  On  the  Nature  of  the  Gods,” 
he  examines  all  the  current  creeds  of  the  day,  but  leaves 
his  own  quite  undefined. 

The  treatise  takes  the  form,  like  the  rest,  of  an  imagi¬ 
nary  conversation.  This  is  supposed  to  have  taken 
place  at  the  house  of  Aurelius  Cotta,  then  Pontifex 
Maximus — an  office  which  answered  nearly  to  that  of 
Minister  of  religion.  The  other  speakers  are  Balbus, 
Velleius,  and  Cicero  himself, — who  acts,  however, 
rather  in  the  character  of  moderator  than  of  disputant. 
The  debate  is  still,  as  in  the  more  strictly  philosophical 
dialogues,  between  the  different  schools.  Velleius  first 
sets  forth  the  doctrine  of  his  master  Epicurus;  speaking 


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about  the  gods,  says  one  of  his  opponents,  with  as  much 
apparent  intimate  knowledge  “as  if  he  had  just  come 
straight  down  from  heaven.”  All  the  speculations  of  pre¬ 
vious  philosophers — which  he  reviews  one  after  the  other 
— are,  he  assures  the  company,  palpable  errors.  The 
popular  mythology  is  a  mere  collection  of  fables.  Plato 
and  the  Stoics,  with  their  Soul  of  the  world  aod  their 
pervading  Providence,  are  entirely  wrong;  the  disciples 
of  Epicurus  alone  are  right.  There  are  gods ;  that  much, 
the  universal  belief  of  mankind  in  all  ages  sufficiently 
establishes.  But  that  they  should  be  the  laborious  beings 
which  the  common  systems  of  theology  would  make 
them, — that  they  should  employ  themselves  in  the  man¬ 
ufacture  of  worlds, — is  manifestly  absurd.  Some  of 
this  argument  is  ingenious.  ‘  ‘  What  should  induce  the 
Deity  to  perform  the  functions  of  an  iEdile,  to  light 
up  and  decorate  the  world?  If  it  was  to  supply  better 
accommodation  for  himself,  then  he  must  have  dwelt  of 
choice,  up  to  that  time,  in  the  darkness  of  a  dungeon. 
If  such  improvements  gave  him  pleasure,  why  should 
he  have  chosen  to  be  without  them  so  long?” 

No — the  gods  are  immortal  and  happy  beings ;  and 
these  very  attributes  imply  that  they  should  be  wholly 
free  from  the  cares  of  business — exempt  from  labor, 
as  from  pain  and  death.  They  are  in  human  form,  but 
of  an  ethereal  and  subtile  essence,  incapable  of  our 
passions  or  desires.  Happy  in  their  own  perfect  wis¬ 
dom  and  virtue,  they 

“  Sit  beside  their  nectar,  careless  of  mankind.” 

Cotta — speaking  in  behalf  of  the  New  Academy — 
controverts  these  views.  Be  these  your  gods,  Epicurus? 
as  well  say  there  are  no  gods  at  all.  What  reverence, 
what  love,  or  what  fear  can  men  have  of  beings  who 


CICERO. 


167 


neither  wish  them,  nor  can  work  them,  good  or  ill?  Is 
idleness  the  divinest  life  ?  “  Why,  ’tis  the  very  heaven 

of  schoolboys ;  yet  the  schoolboys,  on  their  holiday,  em¬ 
ploy  themselves  in  games.”  Nay,  he  concludes,  what 
the  Stoic  Posidonius  said  of  your  master  Epicurus  is 
true — “He  believed  there  were  no  gods,  and  what  he 
said  about  their  nature  he  said  only  to  avoid  popu¬ 
lar  odium.”  He  could  not  believe  that  the  Deity  has 
the  outward  shape  of  a  man,  without  any  solid  essence  ; 
that  he  has  all  the  members  of  a  man,  without  the 
power  to  use  them ;  that  he  is  a  shadowy  transparent  be¬ 
ing,  who  shows  no  favor  and  confers  no  benefits  on 
any,  cares  for  nothing  and  does  nothing;  this  is  to  allow 
his  existence  of  the  gods  in  word,  but  to  deny  it  in  fact. 

Velleius  compliments  his  opponent  on  his  clever 
argument,  but  desires  that  Balbus  would  state  his  views 
upon  the  question.  The  Stoic  consents ;  and,  at  some 
length,  proceeds  to  prove  (what  neither  disputant  has  at 
all  denied)  the  existence  of  Divine  beings  of  some  kind. 
Universal  belief,  well-authenticated  instances  of  their 
appearance  to  men,  and  of  the  fulfillment  of  prophecies 
and  omens,  are  all  evidences  of  their  existence.  He 
dwells  much,  too,  on  the  argument  from  design,  of 
which  so  much  use  has  been  made  by  modern  theolo¬ 
gians.  He  furnishes  Paley  with  the  idea  for  his  well- 
known  illustration  of  the  man  who  finds  a  watch  ; 
“when  we  see  a  dial  or  a  water-clock,  we  believe  that 
the  hour  is  shown  thereon  by  art,  and  not  by  chance.”* 
He  gives  also  an  illustration  from  the  poet  Attius,  which 
from  a  poetical  imagination  has  since  become  an  histor¬ 
ical  incident ;  the  shepherds  who  see  the  ship  Argo  ap¬ 
proaching  take  the  new  monster  for  a  thing  of  life,  as 


*  De  Nat.  Deor.  ii.  34.  Paley’s  Nat.  Theol.  ch.  i. 


168 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


the  Mexicans  regarded  the  ships  of  Cortes.  Much  more, 
he  argues,  does  the  harmonious  order  of  the  world  be¬ 
speak  an  intelligence  within.  But  his  conclusion  is  • 
that  the  Universe  itself  is  the  Deity;  or  that  the  Deity 
is  the  animating  Spirit  of  the  Universe;  and  that  the 
popular  mythology,  which  gives  one  god  to  the  Earth, 
one  to  the  Sea,  one  to  Fire,  and  so  on,  is  in  fact  a  dis¬ 
torted  version  of  this  truth.  The  very  form  of  the  uni¬ 
verse — the  sphere — is  the  most  perfect  of  all  forms,  and 
therefore  suited  to  embody  the  Divine. 

Then  Cotta — who  though,  as  Pontifex,  he  is  a  nation¬ 
al  priest  by  vocation,  is  of  that  sect  in  philosophy  which 
makes  doubt  its  creed — resumes  his  objections.  He  is 
no  better  satisfied  with  the  tenets  of  the  Stoics  than  with 
those  of  the  Epicureans.  He  believes  that  there  are  gods; 
but,  coming  to  the  discussion  as  a  dispassionate  and  philo¬ 
sophical  observer,  he  finds  such  proofs  as  are  offered  of 
their  existence  insufficient.  But  this  third  book  is  frag¬ 
mentary,  and  the  continuity  of  Cotta’s  argument  is  brok. 
en  by  considerable  gaps  in  all  the  manuscripts.  There 
is  a  curious  tradition,  that  these  portions  were  carefully 
torn  out  by  the  early  Christians,  because  they  might 
prove  too  formidable  weapons  in  the  hands  of  unbe¬ 
lievers.  Cotta  professes  throughout  only  to  raise  his  ob¬ 
jections  in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  refuted;  but  his 
whole  reasoning  is  destructive  of  any  belief  in  an  over¬ 
ruling  Providence.  He  confesses  himself  puzzled  by 
that  insoluble  mystery — the  existence  of  Evil  in  a  world 
created  and  ruled  by  a  beneficent  Power.  The  gods 
have  given  man  reason,  it  is  said ;  but  man  abuses  the 
gift  to  evil  ends.  “This  is  the  fault,”  you  say,  “of 
men,  not  of  the  gods.  As  though  the  physician  should 
complain  of  the  virulence  of  the  disease,  or  'the  pilot 
of  the  fury  of  the  tempesC  Though  these  are  but  mortal 


CICERO. 


169 


men,  even  in  them  it  would  seem  ridiculous.  Who 
would  have  asked  your  help,  we  should  answer,  if  these 
difficulties  had  not  arisen?  May  we  not  argue  still 
more  strongly  in  the  case  of  the  gods?  The  fault,  you 
say,  lies  in  the  vices  of  men.  But  you  should  have  giv¬ 
en  men  such  a  rational  faculty  as  would  exclude  the 
possibility  of  such  crimes.”  He  sees,  as  David  did,  “the 
tingodly  in  prosperity.”  The  laws  of  Heaven  are 
mocked,  crimes  are  committed,  and  “the  thunders  of 
Olympian  Jove  are  silent.”  He  quotes,  as  it  would  al¬ 
ways  be  easy  to  quote,  examples  of  this  from  all  history : 
the  most  telling  and  original,  perhaps,  is  the  retort  of 
Diagoras;  who  was  called  the  Atheist,  when  they 
showed  him  in  the  temple  at  Samothrace  the  votive  tab¬ 
lets  (as  they  may  be  seen  in  some  foreign  churches  now) 
offered  by  those  shipwrecked  seamen  who  had  been 
saved  from  drowning.  “  Lo,  thou  that  deniest  a  Provi¬ 
dence,  behold  here  how  many  have  been  saved  by  prayer 
to  the  gods!”  “Yea,”  was  his  reply;  “but  where  are 
those  commemorated  who  were  drowned  ?’’ 

The  Dialogue  ends  with  no  resolution  of  the  difficul¬ 
ties,  and  no  conclusion  as  to  the  points  in  question. 
Cicero,  who  is  the  narrator  of  the  imaginary  conference, 
gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  arguments  of  the  Stoic 
seemed  to  him  to  have  “  the  greater  probability.”  It 
was  the  great  tenet  of  the  school  which  he  most  af¬ 
fected,  that  probability  was  the  nearest  approach  that 
man  could  make  to  speculative  truth.  “We  are  not 
among  those,”  he  says,  “to  whom  there  seems  to  be  no 
such  thing  as  truth;  but  we  say  that  all  truths  have 
some  falsehoods  attached  to  them  which  have  so  strong 
a  resemblance  to  truth,  that  in  such  cases  there  is  no 

certain  note  of  distinction  which  can  determine  our 

- 

judgment  and  assent.  The  consequence  of  which  is 


170 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


that  there  are  many  things  probable  ;  and  although  they 
are  not  subjects  of  actual  perception  to  our  senses,  yet 
they  have  so  grand  and  glorious  an  aspect  that  a  wise 
man  governs  his  life  thereby.”*  It  remained  for  one 
of  our  ablest  and  most^  philosophical  Christian  writers 
to  prove  that  in  such  matters  probability  was  practically 
equivalent  to  demonstration.!  Cicero’s  own  form  of 
skepticism  in  religious  matters  is  perhaps  very  nearly 
expressed  in  the  striking  anecdote  which  lie  puts,  in 
this  dialogue,  into  the  mouth  of  the  Epicurean. 

“If  you  ask  me  what  the  Deity  is,  or  what  his  nature 
and  attributes  are,  I  should  follow  the  example  of 
Simonides,  who,  when  the  tyrant  Hiero  proposed  to 
him  the  same  question,  asked  a  day  to  consider  of  it. 
When  the  king,  on  the  next  day,  required  from  him  the 
answer,  Simonides  requested  two  days  more ;  and  when 
he  went  on  continually  asking  double  the  time,  instead 
of  giving  any  answer,  Hiero  in  amazement  demanded 
*  of  him  the  reason.  ‘  Because,’ replied  he,  ‘the  longer 
I  meditate  on  the  question,  the  more  obscure  does  it 
appear.’  ”  \ 

The  position  of  Cicero  as  a  statesman,  and  also  as  a 
member  of  the  College  of  Augurs,  no  doubt  checked 
any  strong  expression  of  opinion  on  his  part  as  to  the 
forms  of  popular  worship  and  many  particulars  of 
popular  belief.  In  the  treatise  which  he  intended  as  in 
some  sort  a  sequel  to  this  Dialogue  on  the  “  Nature  of 
the  Gods” — that  upon  “  Divination” — he  states  the  argu¬ 
ments  for  and  against  the  national  belief  in  omens, 
auguries,  dreams,  and  such  intimations  of  the  Divine 

*  De  Nat.  Deor.  i.  5, 

t  “  To  us,  probability  is  the  very  guide  of  life.”— Introd.  to 
Butler’s  Analogy. 

%  De  Nat.  Deor.  i.,  22. 


CICERO. 


171 


will.*  He  puts  the  defence  of  the  system  in  the  mouth 
of  his  brother  Quintus,  and  takes  himself  the  destruc¬ 
tive  side  of  the  argument:  but  whether  this  was  meant 
to  give  his  own  real  views  on  the  subject,  we  cannot  be 
so  certain.  The  course  of  argument  employed  on  both 
sides  would  rather  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  writ¬ 
ers’s  opinion  was  very  much  that  which  Johnson  de¬ 
livered  as  to  the  reality  of  ghosts — “All  argument  is 
against  it,  but  all  belief  is  for  it.” 

With  regard  to  the  great  questions  of  the  soul’s  im¬ 
mortality,  and  a  state  of  future  rewards  and  punish¬ 
ments,  it  would  be  quite  possible  to  gather  from  Cicero’s 
writings  passages  expressive  of  entirely  contradictory 
views.  The  bent  of  his  mind,  as  has  been  sufficiently 
shown,  was  towards  doubt,  and  still  more  towards  dis¬ 
cussion  ;  and  possibly  his  opinions  were  not  so  entirely 
in  a  state  of  flux  as  the  remains  of  his  writings  seem  to 
show.  In  a  future  state  of  some  kind  he  must  certainly 
have  believed — that  is,  with  such  belief  as  he  would 
have  considered  the  subject-matter  to  admit  of — as  a 
strong  probability.  In  a  speculative  fragment  which 
has  come  down  to  us,  known  as  “Scipio’s  Dream,”  we 
seem  to  have  the  creed  of  the  man  rather  than  the 
speculations  of  the  philosopher.  Scipio  Africanus  the 
elder  appears  in  a  dream  to  the  younger  who  bore  his 
name  (his  grandson  by  adoption).  He  shows  him  a 
vision  of  heaven;  bids  him  listen  to  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  which,  as  they  move  in  their  order,  “  by  a 
modulation  of  high  and  low  sounds,”  give  forth  that 
harmony  which  men  have  in  some  poor  sort  reduced  to 
notation.  He  bids  him  look  down  upon  the  earth, 

*  There  is  a  third  treatise,  “  De  Fato,”  apparently  a  continua¬ 
tion  of  the  series,  of  which  only  a  portion  has  reached  us.  Tt  is 
a  discussion  of  the  difficult  questions  of  Fate  and  Free-will. 


172 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


contracted  to  a  mere  speck  in  the  distance,  and  draws  a 
lesson  of  the  poverty  of  all  mere  earthly  fame  and  glory. 

“  For  all  those  who  have  preserved,  or  aided,  or  bene¬ 
fited  their  country,  there  is  a  fixed  and  definite  place  in 
heaven,  where  they  shall  be  happy  in  the  enjoyment  of 
everlasting  life.”  But  “the  souls  of  those  who  have 
given  themselves  up  to  the  pleasures  of  sense,  and  made 
themselves,  as  it  were,  the  servants  of  these, — who  at 
the  bidding  of  the  lust  which  wait  upon  pleasure  have 
violated  the  laws  of  gods  and  men, — they,  when  they 
escape  from  the  body,  flit  still  around  the  earth,  and 
never  attain  to  these  abodes  but  after  many  ages  of 
wandering.”  We  may  gather  that  his  creed  admitted 
a  Valhalla  for  the  hero  and  the  patriot,  and  a  long  pro¬ 
cess  of  expiation  for  the  wicked. 

There  is  a  curious  passage  preserved  by  St.  Augustin 
from  that  one  of  Cicero’s  works  which  he  most  admired 
— the  lost  treatise  on  “  Glory”  * — which  seems  to  show 
that  so  far  from  being  a  materialist,  he  held  the  body  to 
be  a  sort  of  purgatory  for  the  soul. 

‘  ‘  The  mistakes  and  the  sufferings  of  human  life  make 
me  think  sometimes  that  those  ancient  seers,  or  inter¬ 
preters  of  the  secrets  of  heaven  and  the  counsels  of  the 
Divine  mind,  had  some  glimpse  of  the  truth,  when  they 
said  that  men  are  born  in  order  to  suffer  the  penalty  for 
some  sins  committed  in  a  former  life;  and  that  the  idea 
is  true  which  we  find  in  Aristotle,  that  we  are  suffering 
some  such  punishment  as  theirs  of  old,  who  fell  into  the 
hands  of  those  Etruscan  bandits,  and  were  put  to  death 
with  a  studied  cruelty;  their  living  bodies  being  tied  to 
dead  bodies,  face  to  face,  in  closest  possible  conjunc¬ 
tion;  that  so  our  souls  are  coupled  to  our  bodies,  united 
like  the  living  with  the  dead.” 


*  See  p.  26. 


CICERO. 


173 


But  whatever  might  have  been  the  theological  side,  if 
one  may  so  express  it,  of  Cicero’s  religion,  the  moral 
aphorisms  which  meet  us  here  and  there  in  his  works 
have  often  in  them  a  teaching  which  comes  near  the 
tone  of  Christian  ethics.  The  words  of  Petrarch  are 
hardly  too  strong— “  You  would  fancy  sometimes  it  was 
not  a  Pagan  philosopher  but  a  Christian  apostle  who  was 
speaking.”*  These  are  but  a  few  out  of  many  which 
might  be  quoted :  ‘  ‘  Strive  ever  for  the  truth,  and  so 
reckon  as  that  not  thou  art  mortal,  but  only  this  thy 
body,  for  thou  art  not  that  which  this  outward  form  of 
thine  shows  forth,  but  each  man’s  mind,  that  is  the  real 
man — not  the  shape  which  can  be  traced  with  the 
finger. ”f  “Yea,  rather,  they  live  who  have  escaped 
from  the  bonds  of  their  flesh  as  from  a  prison-house.” 

“Follow  after  justice  and  duty;  such  a  life  is  the 
path  to  heaven,  and  into  yon  assembly  of  those  who 
have  once  lived,  and  now,  released  from  the  body, 
dwell  in  that  place.”  Where,  in  any  other  heathen 
writer,  shall  we  find  such  noble  words  as  those  which 
close  the  apostrophe  in  the  Tusculans? — “  One  single 
day  well  spent,  and  in  accordance  with  thy  precepts, 
were  better  to  be  chosen  than  an  immortality  of  sin  !”j; 
He  is  addressing  himself,  it  is  true,  to  Philosophy;  but 
his  Philosophy  is  here  little  less  than  the  Wisdom  of 
Scripture:  and  the  spiritual  aspiration  is  the  same — 
only  uttered  under  greater  difficuities — as  that  of  the 
Psalmist  when  he  exclaims,  “  One  day  in  thy  courts  is 
better  than  a  thousand!”  We  may  or  may  adopt 
Erasmus’s  view  of  his  inspiration — or  rather,  inspiration 


*  “  Interdunwnon  Paganum  philosophum,  sed  ,apostolum  loqui 
putes.” 

t 41  The  Dream  of  Scipio.” 

X  Tusc.,  v.  2.' 


174 


TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRART. 


is  a  word  which  has  more  than  one  definition,  and  this 
would  depend  upon  which  definition  we  take;  but  we 
may  well  sympathize  with  the  old  scholar  when  he  says 
— “I  feel  a  better  man  for  reading  Cicero.” 


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HERODOTUS 


BY 

GEORGE  C.  SWAYNE,  M.A. 

LATE  FELLOW  OF  CORPUS  CHRISTI  COLLEGE,  OXFORD. 


NEW  YORK 

JOHN  B.  ALDEN,  PUBLISHER 

1883 


CONTENTS, 


PAGE. 

Introduction .  . .  1 

Chapter  I.  Croesus . . . . 9 

“  IT.  Cyrus .  22 

“  III.  Egypt . .36 

44  IY.  Cambyses . . . 60 

1‘  Y.  Darius .  70 

u  YI.  Scythia . „ .  80 

“  YII.  The  Tyrants  of  Greece . .  93 

f-  VIII.  Ionia  .  106 

4‘  IX.  Marathon .  122 

44  X.  Thermopylae .  .  ...  132 

t(  XI.  Saiamis . 145 

'  44  XII.  Plataea  and  Mycale . 154 

44  XIII.  Concluding  E-emarics . 165 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

So  little  is  known  for  certain  regarding  the  life  of 
Herodotus,  “the  father  of  history,”  that  it  may  well 
be  a  subject  of  congratulation  that  he  has  not  shared 
the  fate  of  Homer,  the  father  of  poetry,  in  having 
doubt  thrown  on  his  individual  existence. 

He  appears  to  have  been  born  about  the  year  484 
before  Christ,  between  the  two  great  Persian  invasions 
of  Greece,  at  Halicarnassus,  a  colony  of  Dorian  Greeks 
on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  His  family  was  one  of 
some  distinction.  From  his  writings  alone  we  should 
know  that  he  received  a  liberal  education,  and  became 
familiarly  acquainted  with  the  current  literature  of  his 
day;  and  the  epic  form  of  his  great  prose  work,  besides 
numberless  expressions  and  allusions,  bears  witness  to 
the  fact  that  the  Homeric  poems  were  his  constant 
study  and  model. 

His  early  manhood  was  spent  in  extensive  travels, 
in  which  he  accumulated  the  miscellaneous  materials 
of  his  narrative.  He  visited,  in  the  course  of  them,  a 
great  part  of  the  then  known  world;  from  Babylon 
and  Susa  in  the  east,  to  the  coast  of  Italy  in  the 
west;  and  from  the  mouths  of  the  Dnieper  and  the 
Danube  in  the  north,  to  the  cataracts  of  Upper  Egypt 
southwards.  Thus  his  travels  covered  a  distance  of 


2 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


thirty-one  degrees  of  longitude  from  east  to  west,  and 
twenty -four  of  latitude  from  north  to  south — an  area  of 
something  like  1700  miles  square.  It  was  an  immense 
range  in  days  when  there  were  few  facilities  for  locomo- 
tion,  and  when  every  country  was  supposed  to  be  at  war 
with  its  neighbors,  unless  hound  by  express  treaties 
of  peace  and  alliance.  He  travelled,  too,  it  must  be 
remembered,  in  an  age  when  robbers  by  land  and  sea 
were  members  of  a  recognized  profession, — very  lucra¬ 
tive  and  not  entirely  disreputable:  when  (as  we  shall 
see  hereafter)  disappointed  political  or  military  adven¬ 
turers  took  to  piracy  as  a  last  resort,  without  any  sort 
of  compunction.  “Pray,  friends,  are  you  pirates, — or 
what?”  is  the  question  which  old  Nestor  pu-ts  to  his 
visitors,  in  the  “Odyssey,”  without  the  least  intention 
either  of  jesting  or  of  giving  offence  A  voyage  itself 
was  such  a  perilous  matter,  that  a  Greek  seaman  never, 
if  he  could  help  it,  lost  sight  of  land  in  the  daytime,  or 
remained  on  board  his  ship  during  the  night;  and  at 
a  late  date  the  philosopher  Aristotle  distinctly  admits 
that  even  his  ideal  “brave”  man  may,  without  prejudice 
to  his  character,  fear  the  being  drowned  at  sea.  The 
range  of  our  author’s  travels  is,  however,  less  wonderful 
than  their  busy  minuteness.  He  is  traveller,  archae¬ 
ologist.  natural  philosopher,  and  historian  combined  in 
one.  He  appears  scarcely  ever  to  have  concluded  his 
visit  to  a  country  without  exhausting  every  available 
source  of  information.  Personal  inquiry  alone  seems  to 
have  satisfied  him,  wherever  it  could  be  made;  though 
lie  consulted  carefully  all  written  materials  within  his 
reach,  records  public  and  private,  sacred  and  secular, 
lie. rightly  calls  his  work  a  “history,”  for  the  Greek 
word  “history’’  means  really  “investigation,”  though 
i.  has  passed  into  a  different  use  with  us.  In  Egypt 


HERODOTUS. 


3 


alone  lie  seems  to  have  spent  many  years,  visiting  and 
exploring  its  most  remarkable  cities — Memphis,  Hiero- 
polis,  and  the  “hundred-gated”  Thebes.  In  Greece 
proper,  as  well  as  its  colonies  on  the  Asiatic  seaboard 
and  in  South  Italy,  and  in  all  the  islands  of  the  Archi¬ 
pelago,  he  is  everywhere  at  home,  as  well  as  in  the  re. 
moter  regions  of  Asia  Minor. 

Such  details  of  his  life  as  have  come  down  to  us 
rest  on  somewhat  doubtful  authority.  It  is  said  that 
he  was  driven  from  Halicarnassus  to  Samos  by  the 
tyranny  of  Lygdamis,  grandson  of  that  Queen  Arte¬ 
misia  whose  conduct  he  nevertheless,  with  some  gener¬ 
osity,  immortalizes  in  his  account  of  the  battle  of 
Salamis;  that  in  Samos  he  learned  the  Ionic  dialect 
in  which  his  history  is  written;  that  in  time  he  re¬ 
turned  to  head  a  successful  insurrection  against  Lyg¬ 
damis,  but  then,  finding  himself  unpopular,  joined  in 
the  Athenian  colonization  of  Thurium,  in  Italy,  where 
he  died  and  was  buried,  and  wdiere  his  tomb  in  the 
market-place  was  long  shown.  His  residence  at  Samos 
may  have  been  a  fiction  invented  to  explain  the  dialect 
in  which  he  wrote,  which  was  more  probably  that  con¬ 
secrated  by  usage  to  historical  composition.  At  one 
time  he  appears  to  have  removed  to  Athens,  where  he 
received  great  honors,  partly  in  the  substantial  shape 
of  ten  talents  (more  than  £2400),  after  a  public  recita¬ 
tion  of  his  history.  According  to  one  story,  he  was 
commissioned  to  read  it  before  the  assembly  of  all  the 
Greek  States  on  the  occasion  of  the  great  national  games 
held  every  fourth  year  at  Olympia  in  Elis. 

Amongst  the  audience  on  some  such  occasion,  most 
probably  at  Athens,  a  young  Athenian,  Thucydides, 
is  said  to  have  been  present;  and  the  introduction 
Which  then  took  place  may  haye  given  the  first  stim^ 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


ulus  to  the  future  liistoriau  of  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
who,  despairing  of  surpassing  his  predecessor  as  a 
charming  story-teller,  boldly  struck  out  for  himself  a 
new  path,  as  the  founder  of  the  critical  method.  It 
seems  also  that  at  Athens  Herodotus  enjoyed  the  friend¬ 
ship  of  the  great  tragic  poet  Sophocles.  Plutarch  has 
preserved  the  opening  words  of  a  poem  in  which  the 
tragedian  compliments  the  historian,  after  he  had  quitted 
Athens  for  Thurium.  In  two  of  the  tragedies  of  Soph¬ 
ocles,  the  “  GEdipus  at  Colonos”  and  the  “Antigone,” 
are  passages  plainly  adapted  from  this  history.  The 
society  of  Athens  under  Pericles,  comprising  all  that 
was  most  select  and  brilliant  in  art  and  intellect,  must 
have  had  great  attractions  for  Herodotus;  and  it  im¬ 
plies  some  self-denial  on  his  part  to  have  torn  himself 
away  from  it.  Probably  he  longed  to  exercise,  as  most 
Greeks  did,  full  political  rights,  which,  as  an  alien,  he 
could  not  enjoy  at  Athens,  though  he  was  evidently  an 
enthusiastic  admirer  of  her  institutions. 

After  his  emigration  to  Thurium,  he  seems  to  have 
devoted  his  life  to  the  elaboration  and  amplification  of 
his  great  work.  Several  passages  in  his  history  prove 
that  he  was,  at  all  events,  acquainted  with  the  earlier 
events  of  the  great  Peloponnesian  war.  The  balance 
of  evidence  seems  to  point  to  his  death  having  occurred 
when  he  was  about  sixty.  If  so,  he  at  least  escaped 
witnessing,  as  the  result  of  that  war,  the  fall  of  his  be¬ 
loved  Athens  from  her  well-won  supremacy  over 
Greece. 

The  history  of  Herodotus  is  a  great  prose  epic,  sug¬ 
gested  doubtless  to  the  author  in  early  life  by  the  fame 
of  those  events  which  were  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
all  men — the  repulse  of  the  Persian  invasion,  and  the 
liberation  of  Greece.  The  Greeks  had  thrown  off  col- 


HERODOTUS. 


5 


onies,  from  time  to  time,  into  the  islands  of  the  Levant 
and  the  west  coast  of  Asia.*  These  Asiatic  Greeks  had 
actually  been  enslaved  by  Persia;  and  European 
Greece,  though  free  from  the  first,  could  only  wake  to 
the  full  consciousness  of  that  freedom  when  the  over¬ 
shadowing  dread  of  the  monster  Asiatic  power  had  been 
dissipated.  Independence  could  be  but  a  name  for 
either  Athenian  or  Spartan  so  long  as  the  very  sight  of 
the  Persian  dress  (as  Herodotus  tells  us)  inspired  terror. 
Until  Miltiades  won  Marathon,  by  a  rush  as  apparently 
desperate  as  our  Balaklava  charge,  the  Persians  had 
been  reputed  invincible.  Their  second  expedition 
against  Greece  was  intended  to  repair  the  damaged  pres¬ 
tige  of  Persian  valor,  by  setting  in  motion  overwhelm¬ 
ing  numbers.  It  seemed  as  if  the  dead  weight  alone  of 
Asiatic  fleets  and  armies  must  carry  all  before  it.  It 
did  indeed  carry  Athens,  but  not  the  Athenians.  The 
sea-fight  of  Salamis  was  won  by  citizens  who  had  lost 
their  city.  The  two  great  victories  which  followed 
within  a  year — Platsea  and  Mycale,  gained  on  the  same 
day — indicated  for  ever  the  superiority  of  Europeans 
over  Asiatics.  The  latter  was  fought  out  on  Asiatic 
ground — the  beginning  of  the  great  retribution  - which 
has  continued  even  to  the  present  time,  represented  by 
uncertain  tides  of  Western  conquest  gradually  gaining 
ground  on  the  East. 

Never  before  or  since  has  an  author  employed  him¬ 
self  with  grander  subject  matter  than  Herodotus.  The 
victories  of  Freedom  in  all  ages,  more  than  any  other 
conquests,  have  stirred  the  human  heart  to  its  depths. 

*  Of  these  colonies,  some  were  Ionian,  some  Dorian,  and  some 
iEolian,  having  been  originally  founded  by  each  of  these  cld 
Greek  races.  But  Herodotus  usually  speaks  of  them  all  as 
“  Ionians,”  as  these  took  the  most  active  share  in  the  war. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


It  is  the  cause  that  alone  humanizes  war,  and  makes  it 
other  than  brutal  butchery.  Many  such  victories  there 
have  been  in  the  course  of  time,  but  all  of  local  and  lim¬ 
ited  importance  in  comparison.  And,  indeed,  perhaps 
Marathon  made  Morgarten  possible.  By  Salamis  and 
Platsea  the  world  may  have  escaped  being  orientalized 
for  ever,  and  bound  in  the  immobility  of  China,  These 
battles,  by  saving  freedom  and  securing  progress, antici¬ 
pated  the  overthrow  of  the  Saracens  before  Tours,  and 
of  the  Turks  before  Vienna.  Herodotus,  indeed,  could 
not  see  all  this,  when  the  plan  of  his  great  history 
dawned  on  his  mind,  but  the  salvation  of  his  beloved 
Greece  was  to  him  a  sufficient  inspiration. 

We  find  the  same  unity  of  design  in  the  history  of 
Herodotus  as  In  Homer’s  great  epic.  As  in  the  “Iliad,” 
not  the  siege  of  Troy  but  the  wrath  of  Achilles  is  the 
continual  burden,  so,  in  our  author’s  work,  not  the  his¬ 
tory  of  Greece  but  the  destruction  of  the  great  Persian 
armada  is  its  one  great  subject.  All  the  other  local  his¬ 
tories,  though  introduced  with  much  fullness  of  detail, 
are  subordinate  to  this  consummation.  They  flow  to  it 
like  the  tributaries  of  a  river,  whose  might  and  grandeur 
make  men  love  to  explore  its  sources.  He  gives  us  in 
succession  the  early  history  of  Lydia,  of  Babylon,  and 
of  Assyria,  in  order  to  trace  the  rise  and  fall  of  those 
several  Asiatic  powers  which  merged  at  last  in  the  great 
empire  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  who  are  the  actors 
in  his  true  drama,  to  which  these  preliminary  histories 
are  a  discursive  prologue.  His  work  is  not  a  romance 
founded  on  fact,  like  Xenophon’s  “  Education  of  Cy¬ 
rus,”  or  Shakspeare’s  historical  plays,  or  Scott’s  “  Quen¬ 
tin  Durward.”  It  is  serious  history,  as  history  was  un¬ 
derstood  in  bis  time.  But  the  historian’s  appetite  was 
omnivorous  in  the  collection  of  materials,  and  robustly 


HERODOTUS. 


7 


digested  fable  and  fact  alike.  His  mind  was  like  that 
of  Froissart  and  Philip  de  Comines,  who  lived  in  am 
other  age,  when  miracles  were  thought  matters  of 
course.  Yet  in  Herodotus  we  perceive  the  dawning  of 
that  criticism  which  finds  its  full  expression  in  Thucy¬ 
dides,  who  was  in  mind  a  modern  historian,  though  less 
fastidious  as  to  the  evidence  of  facts  thau  a  man  of  our 
century  would  be.  The  incredulity  of  Herodotus,  when 
it  shows  itself,  seems  rather  evoked  by  the  suspected 
veracity  of  his  informant,  or  some  contradiction  in  phe¬ 
nomena,  than  by  the  incredible  nature  of  the  facts 
themselves. 

He  has  been  most  found  fault  with  for  ascribing  ef- 
fects*to  inadequate  causes;  but  we  ought  rather  to  feel 
grateful  to  him,  considering  the  mould  in  which  the 
mind  of  his  time  wTas  cast,  for  endeavoring  to  trace  the 
connection  between  cause  and  effect  at  all.  In  Homer 
the  gods  are  always  in  requisition,  and  always  at  hand 
to  manage  matters,  even  in  minutest  details.  That 
Herodotus  had  a  religious  mind  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
for  he  speaks  even  of  foreign  and  barbaric  rites  and  be¬ 
liefs  with  intense  respect.  And  the  great  Liberation 
War  of  Greece  was,  in  its  circumstances,  calculated  to 
illustrate  one  great  pervading  principle  of  his  religion — 
that  heaven  will  not  allow  an  excess  of  mortal  prosper¬ 
ity.  The  rock  wdiich  overhung  the  bay  of  Salamis, 
whence  Xerxes  looked  down  on  his  host,  might  well 
bear  the  statue  of  Nemesis.  Nemesis,  in  the  religious 
system  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  is  the  great  divine  stew¬ 
ardess,  who  assigns  to  man  his  quota  of  good  or  of  evil. 
If  man  takes  to  himself  more  good  than  his  share,  she 
adjusts  the  balance  by  giving  him  evil;  for  the  gods  are 
jealous  of  those  who  try  to  vie  with  them.  Did  not 
Apollo  flay  Marsyas  for  daring  to  contend  with  him  on 


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TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


the  lyre?  Did  not  Minerva  change  Arachne  into  a  spi¬ 
der  for  boasting  to  be  a  better  spinster  than  herself? 
So  the  Sovereign  of  the  gods  cannot  endure  the  luxury 
and  pride  of  the  earthly  despot.  It  becomes  the  busi¬ 
ness  of  Nemesis  to  compass  his  destruction.  She*  in¬ 
vokes  against  him  Ate,  or  Infatuation.  Ate  blindfolds 
his  mind,  and  forces  him  to  enter  of  his  own  will  on 
the  path  whose  end  is  destruction.  To  ward  oif  this, 
men  resort  to  sacrifice;  but  any  sacrifice  short  of  what 
is  most  precious  is  useless.  Polycrates,  the  despot  of 
Samos,  almost  insults  the  gods  in  supposing  that  throw¬ 
ing  a  jewel  into  the  sea  will  atone  for  the  crime  of  pros¬ 
perous  sovereignty;  the  ring  comes  back  to  him  in  a 
fish  brought  to  his  table.  Was  not  Agamemnon  com¬ 
pelled  to  sacrifice  his  daughter,  the  pride  of  his  house, 
before  he  could  obtain  a  fair  wind  to  sail  to  Troy?  It 
seems  to  have  been  an  article  of  the  Athenian’s  creed, 
which  Herodotus  shared,  that  there  was  a  sort  of  wick¬ 
edness  in  one  free  man  attempting  to  rise  above  the 
level  of  his  fellow-citizens;  and  perhaps  they  thought 
that  their  honorable  punishment  of  ostracism  was  de¬ 
vised  as  much  for  a  great  man’s  good  as  for  theirs.*  It 
was  a  kind  of  inverted  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  traces  of  which  we  find  throughout  the  Attic  lit¬ 
erature.  Had  Herodotus  lived  in  our  day,  we  may  im- 


*  Ostracism  was  so  called  from  the  oyster-shells  on  which 
Athenian  citizens  wrote  their  names  in  voting.  Any  man  of 
more  than  average  greatness  or  goodness  was  liable  to  incur  this 
left-handed  compliment,  which  consisted  in  his  being  requested 
to  go  abroad  for  a  term  of  years,  in  case  a  sufficient  number  of 
votes  was  given.  It  was  instituted  as  a  security  -to  democracy, 
and  as  preventive  of  coups  d'etat .  It  was  discredited  at  last  by 
its  application  to  the  case  of  a  vulgar  demagogue.  The  Syra¬ 
cusans  had  a  similar  institution  called  “  Petallism,”  from  the 
leaves  of  olive  on  which  the  names  were  written . 


HERODOTUS. 


9 


agine  that  his  attention  would  have  been  powerfully  ar¬ 
rested  by  the  fate  of  Napoleon  the  First,  or  the  Czar 
Nicholas  of  Russia,  as  illustrating  this  sentiment. 

Frequent  references  will  be  found  in  these  pages  to 
Mr.  Rawlinson’s  “History  of  Herodotus;”  but  it  is  de¬ 
sired  here  to  acknowledge  more  distinctly  the  use  which 
has  been  made  of  his  exhaustive  volumes. 

The  history  of  Herodotus  was  divided  by  the  ancients 
into  nine  books,  each  bearing  the  name  of  one  of  the 
Muses.  His  own  order  of  narration  is  very  discursive, 
for  he  digresses  into  local  history  and  anecdote  continu¬ 
ally.  In  these  pages  a  rearrangement  into  chapters  will 
perhaps  be  more  welcome  to  the  general  reader. 


CHAPTER  I. 

CRCESUS. 


“  And  ever,  against  eating  cares, 

Lap  me  in  soft  Lydian  airs.” 

— Milton,  “L’Allegro.” 

In  the  great  quarrel  between  Europe  and  Asia,  which 
is  the  end  and  scope  of  our  author’s  work,  it  is  of  the 
utmost  consequence  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  religious 
principles  that  the  balance  of  blame  should  incline  to 
the  side  of  the  true  offenders.  According  to  the  show¬ 
ing  of  the  Persians  themselves,  who  had  their  story¬ 
tellers,  if  not  historians,  the  Asiatics  were  the  first  of¬ 
fenders.  A  Phoenician  skipper  went  to  Argos,  and  car¬ 
ried  off  Io,  the  king’s  daughter,  to  Egypt,  whither  he 
?vas  bound.  By  way  of  reprisals,  the  Greeks  theq 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


carried  off  two  women  for  one — Europa  from  Tyre,  and 
Meda  from  Colchis.  This  may  have  partly  excused 
Alexander  or  Paris,  son  of  Priam  king  of  Troy,  for 
carrying  off  Helen,  the  wife  of  Menelaus,  from  Sparta, 
in  the  second  generation  afterwards.  But  then,  said 
the  Persians,  the  Greeks  put  themselves  clearly  in  the 
wrong — for  instead  of  carrying  off  another  lady,  they 
made*  the  abduction  of  Helen  a  case  of  war.  “  To 
carry  off  women  was  manifestly  the  deed  of  unjust 
men.  but  to  make  so  serious  matter  of  their  abduction 
was  the  part  of  simpletons,  since  they  hardly  could 
have  been  carried  off  without  their  own  consent.”  In¬ 
deed,  according  to  one  account,  Io  at  least  eloped  of 
her  own  free  will.  But  in  fact,  our  historian  thinks, 
from  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war  the  Asiatics  looked 
upon  the  Greeks  as  their  natural  enemies. 

Without  discussing  too  curiously  all  these  tales, 
Herodotus  has  no  doubt  in  his  own  mind  that  the 
blame  ought  to  lie  with  the  Asiatics,  since  Croesus, 
king  of  Lydia,  was  the  first  historical  aggressor.  Be¬ 
fore  his  time  all  the  Greeks  were  free,  and  he  was  the 
first  Asiatic  potentate  who,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  re¬ 
duced  Grecian  states  to  various  kinds  of  dependency. 
The  towns  on  the  coast  he  subdued  by  force,  easily 
enough.  He  had  proposed  to  try  the  same  means  with 
the  islanders  of  the  Archipelago,  when  he  was  dis¬ 
suaded  from  his  purpose  by  a  shrewd  jest.  Among 
other  travelers  who  visited  his  court  was  one  of  the 
Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece — Bias  of  Priene.  The 
king  asked  him,  as  he  did  all  his  visitors,  what  was  the 
last  news?  “The  islanders,”  said  Bias,  “are  busy 
raising  a  force  of  cavalry  with  which  they  mean  to  in¬ 
vade  Lydia.”  Croesus  declared  it  was  the  very  thing  he 
CQifld  wish,— bu,t>  he  hardly  believed  they  could,  he  so 


HERODOTUS . 


11 


utterly  foolish.  Bias  ventured  to  think  that  the  Greek 
islanders  would  be  equally  amused  to  hear  that  the 
Lydians  intended  to  attack  them  on  their  own  ele¬ 
ment.  The  king  took  the  hint;  and  it  is  the  earliest 
specimen  we  have  of  the  wisdom  which  afterwards 
so  often  clothed  itself  in  the  language  of  the  “Court 
Fool.” 

The  Lydians  appear  to  have  been  a  people,  like  the 
Egyptians,  of  nearly  immemorial  civilization,  and,  like 
the  Asiatic  tribes  who  fought  for  the  Trojans,  to  have 
had  a  common  origin  with  the  Greeks  themselves,  and 
to  have  differed  little  from  them  in  manners  and  cus¬ 
toms.  There  is  manifest  truth  in  the  tradition  which 
connected  them  with  the  Etruscans  and  the  Pelasgians  ; 
and  their  three  dynasties,  of  the  second  of  which  Her¬ 
cules  was  said  to  be  founder,  may  have  represented 
three  cognate  races  of  conquerors,  like  the  Saxons, 
Danes,  and  Normans  with  us.  They  appear  to  have 
been  at  first  a  warlike  people,  but  to  have  been  ener¬ 
vated  by  conquest,  and  then,  like  the  descendants  of 
the  ancient  Italians,  to  have  become  chiefly  famous  as 
artists,  especially  as  musicians. 

This  Croesus,  the  son  of  Alyattes,  in  time  extended 
his  empire  over  most  of  the  countries  westward  of  the 
river  Halys.  He  was  in  some  sort,  the  Solomon  of  his 
age  ;  fabulously  rich,  magnificent  in  his  expenditure, 
and  of  unbounded  hospitality;  so  that  great  men  came 
to  visit  him  from  all  parts,  and  to  gaze  on  the  splen¬ 
dors  of  his  court.  Amongst  them  was  Solon  the  Athe¬ 
nian.  Solon  had  remodeled  the  laws  of  Athens,  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  Athenian  people  ;  but  knowing 
the  fickleness  of  his  countrymen,  had  gone  into  volun¬ 
tary  exile  for  ten  years,  having  bound  them  by  oath 
that  they  would  make  no  change  in  their  institutions  in 


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his  absence.  Croesus,  in  the  course  of  his  conversations 
with  Solon,  wished  to  extract  from  him  the  confession 
that  he  considered  him  the  happiest  of  mankind.  Solon 
refused  to  account  any  man  happy  till  death  had  set 
its  seal  on  his  felicity,  and  took  occasion  to  warn 
Croesus  of  the  instability  of  all  human  affairs,  dilating 
especially  on  the  jealous  nature  of  the  gods.  The 
king  could  not  brook  the  plain-speaking  of  his  guest, 
and  dismissed  him  in  disfavor.  He  was  soon  to 
prove  the  truth  of  his  warning  :  the  terrible  Nemesis, 
says  our  author,  was  awakened — probably,  he  thinks, 
by  this  very  boast  of  thinking  himself  the  happiest  of 
mortals.  Then  he  goes  on  to  tell  in  his  own  delightful 
fashion — 

The  Story  of  Adrastus. 

Croesus  had  two  sons — the  one  grievously  afflicted,  for 
he  was  deaf  and  dumb,  but  the  other  by  far  the  first 
of  the  youths  of  his  age,  by  name  Atys.  Now  Croesus 
dreamed  that  he  should  lose  this  Atys  by  the  stroke  of 
an  iron  weapon.  Through  fear  of  this  dream  he  took 
him  no  longer  with  him  to  the  wars;  but  sought  out 
for  him  a  wife  who  might  keep  him  at  home.  Nay, 
he  even  had  all  the  weapons  that  hung  in  the  men’s 
rooms  stacked  away  in  the  inner  chambers,  lest  any  of 
them  might  fall  on  him  by  accident.  While  the  mar¬ 
riage  was  preparing,  there  came  to  seek  refuge  at  Sardis 
a  Phrygian  of  royal  birith  who  had  committed  homi¬ 
cide.  Croesus  purified  him  with  the  due  rites,  and 
then  inquired  his  name.  He  said,  “  I  am  Adrastus, 
son  of  Gordias;  I  slew  my  brother  by  misadventure, 
and  my  father  has  turned  me  out  of  doors,  and  I  have 
lost  all.”  And  Croesus  answered,  “Thou  art  the  son 
Of  a  friend,  and  art  come  to  friends ;  with  me  thou 


HERODOTUS. 


13 


shalt  lack  nothing.  Thou  wilt  do  best  to  hear  thjr 
mishap  as  lightly  as  thou  mayest.”  About  this  time 
it  came  to  pass  that  a  huge  wild  boar  came  out  of 
Mount  Olympus  in  Mysia  and  laid  waste  the  fields;  and 
the  people  came  to  Croesus  and  besought  him  to  send  to 
them  his  son  to  help  them  with  the  hunting- train.  And 
Croesus,  mindful  of  the  dream,  refused  to  send  his  son, 
but  promised  to  send  the  train  and  picked  sportsmen  of 
the  Lydians.  But  his  son  Atys  coming  in,  was  much 
vexed,  and  said,  “Tliou  bringest  me  to  shame,  my 
father,  in  the  eyes  of  the  citizens  and  of  my  bride,  in 
that  thou  dost  forbid  me  to  go  to  the  wars  and  the  chase, 
as  though  I  were  a  coward.’'  But  Croesus  said,  “  I  hold 
thee  no  coward,  yet  I  do  wisely,  for  I  was  warned  by  a 
dream  that  an  iron  weapon  should  slay  thee;  therefore 
did  I  give  thee  a  wife  to  keep  thee  at  home.  For  thou 
art  in  truth  my  only  son,  for  the  other  I  count  as  though 
he  were  not,  being  deaf  and  dumb.”  Then  answered 
the  son,  “It  is  natural,  my  father,  to  take  good  heed  on 
my  behalf,  after  such  a  dream.  But  what  iron  weapon 
hath  a  boar,  or  what  hands  to  hurl  it?  If  indeed  thou 
hadst  dreamed  that  I  should  die  by  a  tusk,  thou  wouldst 
be  wise  in  doing  what  thou  doest,  but  not  now,  for  this 
war  is  not  with  men.”  Croesus  confessed  himself  per¬ 
suaded  by  these  words,  and  allowed  his  son  to  join  the 
chase;  but  he  begged  Adrastus  to  go  with  him  and  guard 
him,  lest  any  evil  should  happen  by  the  way;  and  Ad¬ 
rastus,  though  heavy  of  heart,  deemed  that  he  could  deny 
Croesus  nothing  in  return  for  his  kindness,  and  went 
accordingly.  So  the  hunters  made  a  great  hunt,  and 
having  brought  the  boar  to  bay,  stood  round  and  threw 
javelins  at  him.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  Adrastus 
threw  his  javelin,  and  missed  the  boar,  and  killed  the 
son  of  Croesus.  So  the  dream  was  fulfilled.  Now 


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The  Elzevir  library. 


Croesus,  when  he  heard  the  news,  was  sorely  troubled, 
and  in  his  anguish  called  on  Jupiter  as  lord  of  purifi¬ 
cation,  as  lord  of  the  hearth,  as  lord  of  companionship, 
to  witness  what  he  suffered  at  the  hands  of  his  suppliant, 
his  guest,  and  the  man  whom  he  had  sent  to  guard  his 
son.  And  now  came  the  Lydians  bearing  the  corpse, 
and  behind  them  followed  the  slayer,  Adrastus.  And 
he,  standing  before  the  bier  and  stretching  forth  his 
hands,  besought  Croesus  to  take  his  life  as  he  was  no 
longer  worthy  to  live.  Then  Croesus,  though  in  great 
grief,  pitied  him  and  said,  “  Thou  hast  made  full  atone¬ 
ment,  in  that  thou  hast  judged  thyself  worthy  of  death. 
Thou  art  not  to  blame,  but  as  a  tool  in  the  hands  of 
some  god,  who  long  since  did  signify  to  me  what  should 
come  to  pass.”  So  Croesus  buried  his  son,  and  spared 
Adrastus.  But  when  he  was  departed,  Adrastus,  as 
thinking  himself  of  all  men  the  most  wretched,  slew 
himself  upon  the  tomb.  And  Croesus  mourned  for  his 
son  for  the  space  of  two  years.  But  at  the  end  of  that 
time  he  was  fain  to  bestir  himself,  for  there  came  to  him 
a  rumor  that  Cyrus  the  Persian  had  conquered  the 
Medes,  and  was  exalting  himself  above  all  the  kings  of 
the  earth;  and  he  hasted,  if  it  were  possible,  to  crush 
the  Persian  power  before  it  became  too  strong. 


Croesus,  in  Herodotus’s  story,  appears  in  close  relations 
with  the  god  Apollo.  The  world-famous  shrine  of  this 
god  was  at  Delphi  on  Mount  Parnassus,  currently  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  the  exact  centre  of  the  earth — the  earth  it¬ 
self  being  looked  upon  as  a  round  disc.  In  the  temple 
there,  the  site  of  which  was  supposed  to  be  the  spot 
where  the  serpent  Python  was  slain  by  the  arrows  of  the 
Sun-god,  there  was  an  oracle,  the  most  renowned  in  the 
world.  Its  answers,  in  spite  of  their  ambiguity,  guided 


HERODOTUS. 


15 


the  public  and  private  affairs  of  the  Greeks  to  an  extent 
which  appears  to  us  now  almost  ludicrous.  Though 
generally  vague  and  perplexing,  yet  they  were  often  so 
much  to  the  point,  that  some  of  the  old  Fathers  of  the 
Church  attributed  them  to  Satanic  influence,  as  they 
doubtless  would  table-turning  and  spirit-rapping,  if  they 
lived  now.  It  was  also  believed  that  their  efficacy  ceased 
exactly  with  the  coming  of  our  Lord,  by  which  time,  at 
all  events,  faith  in  them  had  worn  out.  Milton  alludes 
to  this  tradition  in  his  “  Hymn  on  the  Nativity”: — 

“  The  oracles  are  dumb; 

No  voice  or  hideous  hum 

Runs  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving. 

Apollo  from  his  shrine 
Can  no  more  divine. 

With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delphos  leaving. 

No  nightly  trance,  or  breathed  spell, 

Inspires  the  pale-eyed  priest  from  the  prophetic  cell.” 

Before  he  determined  on  his  expedition  against  Cyrus, 
Croesus  sent  to  test  the  most  famous  oracles  in  Greece 
and  that  of  Jupiter  Ammon  in  Libya,  in  order  that  he 
might  know  which  was  most  to  be  trusted.  And  he 
made  the  trial  thus:  Ire  told  his  messengers  to  ask  each 
oracle,  on  the  hundredth  da}r  after  their  departure,  what 
Croesus  was  doing  at  that  particular  hour.  The  other 
answers  are  unrecorded,  but  the  answer  of  the  priestess 
of  Apollo  at  Delphi  ran  thus: — 

“  Truly  the  tale  of  the  sand  I  know,  and  the  measures  of  ocean — 
Deftly  the  dumb  I  read,  I  list  to  the  voice  of  the  silent. 

Savor  has  reached  my  sense  from  afar  of  a  strong-skinned  tor¬ 
toise 

Simmering,  mixed  together  with  flesh  of  lamb,  in  a  caldron; 
Brazen  the  bed  is  beneath,  and  brazen  the  coverlet  over,” 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Croesus,  when  he  received  this  answer,  judged  the  god 
of  Delphi  to  be  the  wisest,  since  he  alone  could  tell  ex¬ 
actly  what  he  was  doing — for  he  had  been  cooking  the 
flesh  of  a  tortoise,  mixed  with  lamb’s  flesh,  in  a  brass 
caldron  with  a  brass  lid.  Accordingly  he  sent  rich 
presents  to  the  shrine  of  Apollo,  and  ordered  all  his 
subjects  to  pay  him  especial  honors.  Thus  having  satis¬ 
fied  himself  that  this  oracle  at  least  was  true,  he  next 
sent  to  inquire  if  he  should  go  to  war  with  the  Persians. 
The  answer  was,  that  if  he  did  so  “he  would  ruin  a 
great  empire;”  at  which  answer  Croesus  rejoiced  greatly, 
for  he  expected  to  destroy  the  empire  of  the  Persians. 
He  sent  a  third  time  and  inquired  of  the  oracle  if  his 
reign  would  be  long?  And  the  oracle  answered: — 

“When  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  the  Medes  have  a  mule  for 
monarch, 

Lydian,  tender  of  foot,  then  along  by  the  pebbles  of  Hermus 
Flee,  and  delay  not  then,  nor  shame  thee  to  quail  as  a  coward.’' 

Croesus  rejoiced  still  more  when  he  heard  this,  for  he 
thought  that,  as  a  mule  could  never  reign  over  men,  the 
rule  of  himself  and  his  descendants  would  never  come 
to  an  end. 

His  next  step,  still  under  the  advice  of  the  oracle,  was 
to  make  friends  of  the  most  powerful  Greek  states.  At 
this  point  Herodotus,  having  wound  his  readers  up  to 
the  expectation  of  a  catastrophe,  like  some  modern  novel¬ 
ists,  diverges  into  one  of  his  favorite  episodes,  and  takes 
advantage  of  the  fact  that  Croesus  found  the  leading 
Greek  states  to  be  the  Lacedaemonians  and  Athenians, 
to  relate  a  part  of  their  history. 

At  Athens,  Pisistratus,  the  son  of  Hippocrates,  had 
now  raised  himself  to  absolute  power,  Athens  being 


HERODOTUS. 


17 


divided  between  the  parties  of  the  Plain  and  the  Coast, 
he  had  headed  the  third,  called  the  party  of  the  Mount¬ 
ain,  and  by  pretending  that  his  enemies  had  wounded 
him,  managed  to  be  allowed  a  body-guard,  and  then 
seized  on  the  citadel.  He  had  some  vicissitudes  of  for¬ 
tune  before  he  was  firm  in  the  saddle,  and  on  one  occa¬ 
sion  he  returned  to  Athens  in  a  chariot  accompanied  by 
a  woman  of  great  beauty  and  stature,  who  personated 
the  goddess' Athene  (Minerva).*  The  success  of  the  im¬ 
position  is  possible,  if  we  remember  that  the  early 
Greeks  believed  that  the  gods  sometimes  came  down 
visibly  among  mortals.  By  whatever  devices,  however, 
he  gained  or  secured  the  sovereignty,  he  appears  to  have 
ruled  well  and  righteously,  and  to  have  done  much  for 
the  civilization  and  glory  of  Athens. 

The  Spartans  or  Lacedaemonians  were  now  beginning 
to  assert  the  leadership  which  they  afterwards  obtained 
in  the  Peloponnese,  as  a  consequence  of  those  laws  of 
Lycurgus,  wdiose  sole  end  and  object  was  to  make 
Sparta  a  model  barrack  for  a  state  of  soldiers. 

Willi  the  Spartans  Croesus  had  no  difficulty  in  con¬ 
cluding  an  alliance,  as  the  path  of  friendship  had  been 
paved  by  a  previous  interchange  of  gifts  and  civilities; 
they  had  also  heard  of  the  Delphic  prophecies.  He  im¬ 
mediately  proceeded  to  commence  a  campaign  against 
the  Persians  by  marching  into  Cappadocia.  A  sensible 
Lydian  made  one  last  effort  to  dissuade  him.  “  O 
king,”  said  he,  “thou  art  about  to  march  against  men 
who  have  trousers  of  leather,  and  all  the  rest  of  their 


*  If  he  had  also  been  accompanied  by  the  owl  of  that  goddess, 
the  case  would  have  been  very  like  one  which  occurred  in  the 
remembrance  of  this  generation,  when  a  fugitive  prince  landed 
in  France  with  a  tame  eagle  on  his  shoulder. 


18 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


dress  of  leather,  and  the}'-  feed  not  on  what  they  would 
like  hut  on  what  they  have;  for  their  land  is  rough. 
Nay  more,  they  are  unacquainted  with  wine,  being 
water-drinkers,  and  they  have  no  figs  to  eat,  nor  any¬ 
thing  else  that  is  good.  If  thou  conquerest  them  thou 
canst  get  nothing  from  them,  for  they  have  nothing  to 
lose;  if  thou  dost  not,  thou  wilt  lose  all  thine  own  good 
things.  There  will  he  no  thrusting  them  back  when 
once  they  have  had  a  taste  of  what  we  enjoy;  nay,  I 
thank  the  gods  that  they  do  not  put  it  into  the  mind  of 
the  Persians  to  march  against  the  Lydians.” 

In  undertaking  this  war,  Croesus  was  prompted  part¬ 
ly  by  ambition,  partly  by  his  desire  to  punish  Cyrus  for 
dethroning  Astyages,  the  king  of  Media,  who  was  his 
brother-in-law.  Crossing  the  river  Hal ys,*  the  northern 
boundary,  he  advanced  to  the  country  near  Sinope,  on 
the  Black  Sea — in  modern  times  notorious  as  the  scene 
of  the  destruction  of  the  Turkish  fleet  by  the  Russians. 
Here  Cyrus  marched  out  to  meet  him.  A  battle  took 
place  in  which  both  sides  claimed  the  victory.  Croesus, 
however,  thinking  his  numbers  too  small  for  ultimate 
success,  determined  to  fall  back  on  Sardis,  and  begin 
the  wTar  again  after  the  winter  with  larger  forces.  He 
sent  round  to  his  allies  to  tell  them  to  join  him  in  four 
months’  time.  But  his  long  course  of  prosperity  was 
drawing  to  its  close.  Cyrus  had  not  been  so  crippled 
by  the  battle  but  that  he  could  march  straight  to  Sardis 
and  so  ‘1  bring  the  news  of  his  own  arrival.”  Croesus, 
though  surprised,  led  out  the  Lydians  to  meet  him. 
They  were  at  this  time  as  good  men  of  war  as  any  in 
Asia.  They  fought,  like  the  knights  of  chivalry,  on 
horseback,  with  long  lances ;  and  the  plain  before  Sar- 


*  Now  the  KiyJl  Irmak. 


HERODOTUS. 


19 


dis  was  the  battle-field  of  tlieir  predilection.  But  Cyrus 
invented  a  device  to  paralyze  this  cavalry.  Taking  ad¬ 
vantage  of  a  house’s  natural  fear  of  camels,  he  organized 
a  camel  brigade  and  placed  it  in  his  front,  with  in¬ 
fantry  behind  it,  and  his  own  cavalry  in  the  rear. 
Though  the  Lydian  knights,  like  the  Austrians  at  Sem- 
pach,  dismounted  and  fought  on  foot,  the  battle  went 
against  them,  and  Croesus  soon  found  himself  besieged 
in  his  capital.  Then  he  sent  messengers  to  his  allies 
urging  them  to  help  him  with  all  speed. 

The  Spartans,  even  had  they  been  able  to  reach  Sar¬ 
dis  in  time,  could  not  set  out  at  once,  as  they  happened 
just  then  to  have  their  hands  full.  They  were  fighting 
with  the  men  of  Argos  about  a  tract  of  borderland 
called  Thyrea.  Argos  had  been  in  the  old  Homeric 
times  the  head  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  was  always 
very. jealous  of  Spartan  supremacy.  The  plausible  plan 
had  been  adopted  of  fighting  out  this  particular  quarrel 
by  three  hundred  chosen  men  on  each  side;  though 
three  on  each  side,  as  in  the  affair  of  the  Horatii  and 
Curatii  between  Rome  and  Alba,  might  have  answered 
the  purpose  quite  as  well.  The  combat  proved  as 
deadly  as  that  between  the  rival  Highland  clans  re¬ 
corded  by  Scott  in  his  “Fair  Maid  of  Perth.”  Two 
only  of  the  Argives  were  left,  who  ran  home  with  the 
news  of  the  victory;  while  a  single  Spartan,  raising  him¬ 
self  up  from  amongst  a  heap  of  dead,  remained  in  pos¬ 
session  of  the  field  and  set  up  a  trophy.  So  the  result 
was  considered  indecisive,  and  the  main  armies  fell  to 
fighting,  and  the  Spartans  conquered.  Then  the  Ar¬ 
gives  shore  their  hair,  which  they  formerly  wore  long, 
and  bound  themselves  under  a  curse  not  to  let  it  grow 
again  till  they  had  recovered  Thyrea,  and  forbade  their 
women  to  wear  gold  ornaments— a  prohibition  probably 


so 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


more  difficult  to  euforce.  Tlie  Spartans,  in  retaliation, 
made  a  contrary  vow,  to  let  their  hair  grow,  having 
worn  it  cropped  before.  The  survivor  of  their  three 
hundred  was  said  to  have  slain  himself  for  shame. 

In  the  mean  time  Croesus  was  a  lost  man,  The  cita¬ 
del  of  Sardis  had  been  scaled  by  the  Persians  at  a  point 
where  a  king  of  old  had  omitted  to  carry  round  a  lion, 
which  was  to  operate  as  a  charm  to  prevent  its  being 
taken.  It  has  been  mentioned  that  Croesus  had  a  son 
who  was  deaf  and  dumb.  His  father  had  tried  in  vain 
all  means  to  cure  him  of  his  affliction,  and  given  up  the 
attempt  in  despair.  But  now,  when  Sardis  was  taken, 
a  soldier  approached  Croesus,  not  knowing  who  he  was, 
to  slay  him ;  and  Croesus,  in  his  deep  grief,  did  not  care 
to  hinder  him,  which  he  might  have  done  by  giving  his 
name,  since  Cyrus  had  issued  express  orders  to  his  army 
that  the  king  of  Lydia  was  to  be  taken  alive.  Then 
suddenly  the  tongue  of  the  youth  was  loosed,  and  when 
he  saw  the  Persian  approaching,  he  cried  out — “Fellow, 
do  not  kill  Croesus!”  and  having  made  this  beginning, 
he  continued  able  to  speak  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Thus 
Croesus  was  taken  prisoner,  after  a  reign  of  fourteen 
years,  and  Cyrus,  in  the  cruel  spirit  of  the  age,  placed 
him  on  a  pile  of  wood,  with  the  intention  of  burning 
him  alive.  Then  Croesus  bethought  him  of  the  wise 
words  of  Solon,  how  no  man  should  be  accounted  hap¬ 
py  until  the  end,  and  in  his  anguish  called  aloud  thrice 
upon  Solon’s  name.  Cyrus  asked  the  meaning  of  the 
cry,  and  when  he  heard  the  story  was  so  touched  that 
he  ordered  the  pile,  which  was  already  lighted,  to  be 
put  out.  But  this  could  not  be  done  by  all  their  exer¬ 
tions  until  Croesus  prayed  to  Apollo  for  aid,  when  sud¬ 
denly  a  great  storm  of  rain  came  on  and  extinguished 
the  Are. 


HERODOTUS. 


21 


Cyrus  treated  his  royal  prisoner  with  all  honor. 
“When  the  Persian  soldiers  began  to  plunder  Sardis, 
Croesus  inquired  of  his  conqueror  what  they  were  doing, 
“Spoiling  thy  goods,  O  Croesus.”  “Nay,  not  mine,” 
replied  the  fallen  monarch,  “but  thine,  O  Cyrus.” 
Then  Cyrus  stopped  the  sack  of  the  city,  and  in  grati¬ 
tude  for  the  suggestion  of  Croesus,  begged  him  to  name 
any  favor  he  could  do  him.  “  My  lord,”  said  he,  “  suf¬ 
fer  me  to  send  these  chains  to  the  god  at  Delphi,  and  to 
ask  if  this  is  how  he  requites  his  benefactors,  and 
whether  ingratitude  is  an  attribute  of  Greek  gods  in 
general?”  For  Croesus  had  loaded  the  shrine  of  Apollo 
with  costly  presents.  The  message  was  sent,  and  the 
priestess  of  the  oracle  made  this  reply:  “Croesus  atones 
for  his  forefather  Gyges,  who  slew  Candaules  his  mas¬ 
ter.  Apollo  desired  that  the  judgment  should  fall  on 
the  son  of  Croesus  and  not  on  himself,  but  the  gods 
themselves  cannot  avert  fate.  The  god  did  what  he 
could,  for  he  deferred  the  fall  of  Sardis  three  years  be¬ 
yond  the  destined  time  :  secondly,  he  put  out  the  fire, 
and  prevented  Croesus  being  burnt  alive :  thirdly,  he  did 
not  give  a  lying  oracle,  for  he  only  said  that  Croesus 
should  destroy  a  great  empire,  without  saying  what 
empire  it  should  be.  Croesus  has  no  right  to  interpret 
his  words  according  to  his  own  wish.  As  to  the  oracle 
about  the  mule,  he  might  have  known  that  Cyrus  was  a 
Persian  by  his  father’s  side,  and  a  Mede  by  his  mother’s, 
and  so  a  hybrid  king.”  Croesus  was  obliged  to  acquiesce 
in  the  explanation,  and  to  take  his  fate  patiently.  His 
ruin  was  indeed  no  common  bankruptcy.  “As  rich  as 
Croesus,”  soon  grew  into  a  vernacular  proverb.  Yet  he 
was  by  no  means  a  bad  specimen  of  the  millionaire. 
His  gentleness  and  good-nature  were  as  proverbial  as 
his  wealth,  and  Pindar,  the  Theban  poet,  testifies  to 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


to  this  point — doubtless  for  substantial  reasons  of  his 
own : — 

“  Of  kindly  Croesus  and  his  worth 
The  name  doth  never  fade.” 

The  strange  vicissitudes  of  his  life  became  a  fertile 
subject  for  Greek  romancers  and  moralists.  His  riches 
seemed  to  have  been  derived  partly  from  the  grains  of 
gold  brought  down  in  the  sand  of  the  river  Pactolus, 
which  made  Asia  Minor  the  California  of  antiquity. 
This  was  doubtless  the  origin  of  the  fable  of  the  Phyr- 
gian  king  Midas  turning  all  that  he  touched  to  gold. 
It  seems  that  Sardis  in  early  times  was  an  important 
place  of  trade,  as  Herodotus  says  that  the  Lydians  were 
the  first  coiners  of  money  and  the  first  storekeepers,  so 
far  as  was  known.  It  was  at  the  same  time  notorious 
as  the  great  slave- market  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CYRUS. 

“  Not  vainly  did  the  early  Persian  make 
His  altar  the  high  places,  and  the  peak 
Of  earth-o’ergazing  mountains,  and  thus  take 
A  fit  and  unwalled  temple,  there  to  seek 
The  Spirit,  in  whose  honor  shrines  are  weak 
Upreared  of  human  hands.” 

—Byron,  “  Childe  Harold.” 

Before  the  Medes  and  Persians  made  their  appearance 
in  history,  the  Assyrians,  according  to  Herodotus,  had 
ruled  over  upper  Asia  for  five  hundred  and  twenty 
years.  Asshur  appears  in  Scripture*  as  a  son  of  Shem, 


*  Gen.  x.  11,  22. 


HERODOTUS. 


23 


who  went  out  from  the  land  of  Shinar  and 'founded 
Nineveh.  Herodotus  is  supposed  to  have  written  a 
separate  history  of  Assyria,  which  has  been  lost;  but 
Layard  and  others  have  deciphered  for  us  a  new  history 
from  the  monuments  of  that  wonderful  empire.  The 
bearded  kings  and  warriors,  with  their  wars  and  lion 
hunts  graven  on  sandstone  slabs,  which  are  to  be  seen  in 
the  British  Museum  and  in  the  Louvre  in  Paris,  look  as 
fresh  as  if  they  had  been  sculptured  yesterday  instead  of 
nearly  three  thousand  years  ago.  The  Assyrians  were 
of  the  Semitic  race,  of  the  same  family  as  the  Jews  and 
Arabs  ;  while  the  Modes  and  Persians  were,  in  Scriptural 
phrase,  of  the  sons  of  Japheth — that  is,  they  belonged 
to  the  same  Aryan,  Iranian,  or  Indo-Germanic  family  as 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  ourselves.  The  home  of 
the  Assj'rians  and  their  cognate  Babylonians  was  in  the 
great  plain  of  Mesopotamia,  while  the  Medes  lived  in 
the  mountains  to  the  east,  and  the  Persians  to  the 
south-east.  The  Median  highlanders,  being  of  more 
hardy  habits,  first  conquered  the  Assyrian  lowlanders, 
and  then,  descending  to  their  softer  country  and  habits, 
were  conquered  in  their  turn  by  the  hardier  Persians. 
The  decline  of  Assyria  was  consummated  by  the  fall  of 
Nineveh,  which  was  taken,  about  b.  c.  625  by  Cyaxares, 
third  king  of  the  Medes,  in  conjunction  with  the  Bab¬ 
ylonians.  The  first  king  of  the 'Medes  is  said  to  have 
been  Deioces,  who  built  the  wonderful  city  called  by 
Herodotus  Agbatan a,*  and  less  correctly  by  later  writers 
Ecbatana,  with  its  seven  circular  walls,  one  within  the 
other,  with  the  palace  and  treasuries  in  the  centre.  The 
first  wall  had  white  battlements,  the  second  black,  the 
third  scarlet,  the  fourth  blue,  the  fifth  orange.  The  last 


*  In  the  Behistun  inscription  it  is  Hagmat&na, 


24 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


two  walls  liad  their  battlements  silvered  and  gilt.  They 
rose  one  above  another  on  a  conical  hill,  and  were  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  had  a  symbolic  meaning,  as  referring  to 
the  sun,  moon,  and  five  planets,  or  the  deities  presid¬ 
ing  over  the  days  of  the  week.  The  last  king  of  the  Medes 
was  Astyages,  the  son  of  Cyaxares.  He  had  given  liis 
daughter  Mandane  in  marriage  to  Cambyses,  who  was, 
according  to  our  author’s  account  a  poor  Persian 
gentleman,  but  according  to  later  authorities,  a. 
descendant  of  the  first  Persian  king  Achaemenes. 
Astyages  dreamed  that  he  saw  a  vine  spring  from 
the  body  of  his  daughter  Mandane,  which  overshad¬ 
owed  the  whole  of  Asia.  We  know  from  Scripture 
how  much  stress  the  Chaldeans  and  the  Medes  laid 
on  dreams.  Fearing  that  an  offspring  of  Mandane 
would  deprive  him  of  his  sovereignty,  Astyages  or¬ 
dered  the  son  that  was  born  of  her  to  be  destroyed. 
The  courtier  Harpagus,  who  was  commissioned  to  do 
tins,  passed  on  the  child  to  one  of  the  royal  herdsmen, 
that  he  might  expose  it  to  die  upon  the  mountains. 
But  the  herdsman’s  wife,  when  she  saw  that  it  was  “a 
proper  child,”  and  plainly  of  noble  birth,  adorned  for 
death  with  gorgeous  apparel,  took  pity  on  the  infant, 
and  as  she  had  just  lost  one  of  her  own,  persuaded  her 
husband  to  expose  the  dead  child,  and  save  the  living 
one,  that  she  might  nurse  it.  So  the  future  Cyrus 
lived,  while  the  herdsman’s  child  received  a  royal 
funeral.  When  the  boy  was  ten  years  old  he  was  play¬ 
ing  one  day  with  the  children  of  his  village.  The 
game  was  King  and  Courtiers.  Cyrus  was  chosen  king, 
and  assumed  the  dignity  as  if  he  had  been  born  it,  ap¬ 
pointing  officers,  architects,  guards,  couriers,  and  an 
official  called  the  King’s  Eye,*  (possibly  the  head  of  the 


* Tntiis  officer  is  introduced  in  Aristophanes’  comedy  of  “The 


IIE ROD  o  rtis. 


25 

detective  police).  In  carrying  out  his  character,  Cyrus 
ordered  one  of  the  children,  the  son  of  a  Median  of 
high  rank,  to  be  flogged  for  disobedience.  The  angry 
child  went  to  the  city  and  complained  to  his  father, 
who  in  turn  complained  to  the  real  king.  Astyages 
ordered  the  despotic  urchin  to  be  brought  into  his  pres¬ 
ence.  Unabashed,  however,  the  boy  justified  himself; 
and  this  circumstance  together  with  a  strong  family 
resemblance,  led  to  his  recognition  by  the  grandfather, 
who  came  at  the  truth  by  examining  the  herdsman  and 
Harpagus.  He  now  dissembled  his  wrath,  pretended 
that  he  was  glad  the  child  had  been  saved,  and  invited 
Harpagus  to  send  his  son  to  be  the  companion  of  the 
young  prince,  and  to  come  himself  to  dinner.  After 
Harpagus  had  well  feasted,  Astyages  asked  him  how 
he  liked  his  entertainment;  he  said  it  was  excellent. 
Upon  this,  a  basket  was  shown  to  him  containing  the 
head,  hands,  and  feet  of  his  own  son,  on  whose  flesh 
he  had  been  feasting.  The  father,  with  the  dissimula¬ 
tion  natural  to  the  subjects  of  an  Oriental  despotism, 
observed  that  whatsoever  the  king  did  was  right  in  his 
eyes.  It  is  the  very  answer  which  the  son  of  Ethewold 
is  said  by  William  of  Malmesbury  to  have  made  when 
King  Edgar  showed  him  his  father’s  corpse,  slain  by 
him  in  the  royal  forest;  the  English  chronicler  having 
evidently  borrowed  from  Herodotus. 

Acharnians.”  He  appears  in  a  mask  (as  in  a  modern  burlesque) 
with  a  single  huge  eye  in  the  centre.  He  is  brought  to  Athens 
by  some  envoys  who  have  been  at  the  court  of  Persia.  Dicseo- 
polis  (an  honest  farmer,  who  is  present  at  the  reception)  is  in¬ 
dignant  at  their  waste  of  time  and  the  public  money. 

“  Envoy . — We’ve  brought  you  here  a  nobleman— Sham-artabas 

By  name,  by  rank  and  office  the  King’s  Eye. 

Dicceop. — God  send  a  crow  to  peck  it  out,  say  I ! 

And  yours  th’  ambassadors’  into  the  bargain.” 

— Frere’s  Transl. 


26 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Astyages  now  consulted  the  Magi  (a  caste  of  priests 
of  whom  we  shall  hear  more  hereafter)  as  to  what  was 
to  be  done.  They  said  that  they  considered  that  Cyrus 
had  ceased  to  be  dangerous,  since  he  had  been  king 
already  in  the  children’s  play.  So  Astyages  sent  him 
away  into  Persia,  to  his  real  parents.  Meanwhile 
Harpagus  nursed  his  revenge,  till  Cyrus  was  grown  to 
man’s  estate,  and  then  he  felt  his  time  was  come.  He 
sent  a  letter  to  the  noble  youth  sewn  up  in  the  belly 
of  a  hare,  bidding  him  put  himself  at  once  at  the  head 
of  the  Persians,  and  revolt  from  Astyages.  This  king 
— surely  under  some  infatuation  from  heaven,  says  the 
historian — forgetting  the  deadly  wrong  which  he  had 
done  Harpagus,  sent  him  to  suppress  the  revolt.  He 
deserted  to  Cyrus,  and  the  Medes  were  easily  defeated. 
Thus  Cyrus  destroyed  the  great  Median  empire,  and 
substituted  that  of  the  Persians— becoming,  after  the 
downfall  of  Croesus,  master  of  all  Asia.  He  treated 
his  grandfather  Astyages  with  all  honor  to  the  day  of 
his  death. 

There  was  a  religious  as  well  as  a  political  dissidence 
between  the  two  nations.  They  both  worshiped  the 
elements  and  “all  the  host  of  heaven,”  and  planetary 
deities;  but  the  Persian  national  creed  recognized  both 
a  good  and  an  evil  principle  in  nature,  constantly  at 
war,  whom  they  called  Ormuzd  and  Aliriman.  The 
Persians,  according  to  Herodotus,  eschewed  images, 
temples,  and  altars,  and  sacrificed  to  the  elemental  deity 
on  the  tops  of  mountains.  But  he  has  evidently  con¬ 
fused  the  Median  worship  with  theirs.  Their  habits 
much  resembled  those  of  the  old  Germans,  as  described 
by  Tacitus.  They  were  originally  a  simple  people,  and 
compulsory  education  with  them  was  limited  to  teach¬ 
ing  their  sons  “  to  ride,  to  draw  the  bow,  and  speak  the 


HERODOTUS. 


27 


♦ 


truth.”  Next  after  lying,  they  counted  running  in  debt 
most  disgraceful,  since  “he  who  is  in  debt  must  needs 
lie.”  Lepers  were  banished  from  society,  as  they  were 
supposed  to  have  sinned  against  the  sun;  even  white 
pigeons  being  put  under  “  taboo”  for  a  similar  reason.* 
They  were  very  much  given  to  wine  ;f  and  discussed 
every  subject  of  importance  twice — first  when  they 
were  drunk,  and  again  when  they  were  sober.  As 
water  was  a  sacred  element,  none  might  defile  a  river — 
a  sanitary  regulation  in  which  we  moderns  would  do 
well  to  ‘follow  them.  The  bodies  of  the  dead  presented 
a  difficulty.  They  might  not  be  buried,  for  the  earth 
was  sacred;  or  thrown  into  rivers,  for  water  was 
sacred ;  or  burnt,  for  fire  was  sacred.  They  were  there¬ 
fore  exposed  to  be  torn  by  birds  and  beasts— a  fate  of 
which  the  Greeks  had-  the  greatest  horror.  The  Par- 
sees  of  India,  and  the  native  Australians,  dispose  of 
their  dead  in  much  the  same  way.  As  a  compromise, 
adopted  from  the  Magi,  a  body  might  be  buried  when 
covered  with  wax  to  prevent  its  contact  with  the  earth. 

The  Persians,  when  they  had  conquered  the  Medes, 
soon  degenerated  from  their  earlier  simplicity,  which 
is  celebrated  by  Xenophon  in  his  romance  of  the  “Ed¬ 
ucation  of  Cyrus.” 

When  Cyrus,  by  the  defeat  of  Croesus,  had  made 
himself  master  of  Lydia,  the  Greek  colonists  on  the 


*  So  to  this  day,  in  India,  all  white  animals  are  looked  upon 
much  in  the  way  in  which  we  ourselves  regard  albinoes — a  kind 
of  unhealthy  lusus  naturae. 

t  Their  successors  retain  the  taste.  “  It  is  quite  appalling,” 
says  Sir  H.  Rawlinson,  “to  see  the  quantity  of  liquor  which 
some  of  these  topers  habitually  consume,  and  they  usually  pre¬ 
fer  spirits  to  wine,” 


28 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Asiatic  seaboard  sent  to  him  in  alarm,  and  begged  to 
be  allowed  to  be  his  vassals  on  the  same  terms  as  they 
had  been  to  Croesus.  He  answered  them  by  a  scornful 
parable:  “ There  was  a  eertaiu  piper  who  piped  on  the 
sea- shore  for  the  fish  to  come  out,  but  they  came  not. 
Then  he  took  a  net  and  hauled  out  a  great  draught 
of  them.  The  fish,  in  their  agonies,  began  to  caper. 
But  he  said,  ‘  Cease  to  dance  now,  since  ye  would  not 
dance  when  I  piped  to  you.’  ”*  This  answer  drove  the 
Ionian  Greeks  to  fortify  their  towns  and  send  ambas¬ 
sadors  to  Sparta  for  assistance.  Their  envoy,  however, 
disgusted  the  Spartans  by  wearing  a  purple  robe  and 
making  a  long  speech — two  things  which  they  detested; 
and  they  voted  not  to  send  the  succors,  but  despatched 
a  fifty-oared  ship  to  watch  the  proceedings  of  Cyrus. 
When  this  vessel  reached  the  port  of  Phoctea,  a  herald 
was  sent  on  to  Sardis  to  warn  Cyrus  from  the  Spartans 
not  to  hurt  any  Greek  city  on  pain  of  their  displeasure, 
This  caused  Cyrus  to  inquire  who  these  Spartans  were, 
and  how  many  in  numbers,  that  they  dared  to  send 
him  such  a  message.  When  he  was  informed  he  said, 
“  I  am  not  afraid  of  people  who  have  a  place  in  their 
city  where  they  meet  to  cheat  each  other  and  forswear 
themselves”  (meaning  the  agora  or  market-place);  “and 
if  I  live,  the  Spartans  shall  have  troubles  enough  of 
their  own,  without  troubling  themselves  about  the 
Ionians.” 

Cyrus  had  other  business  on  his  hands  at  present  than 
to  punish  the  Greeks;  he  therefore  went  back  to  Ecba- 
tana,  leaving  a  strong  garrison  in  Sardis.  But  while  he 
was  on  his  way  he  heard  that  one  Pactyas  had  induced 


*  This  Eastern  apologue  to  ay  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the 
parable  in  Matt.  xi.  16. 


HERODOTUS. 


29 


the  Sardians  to  revolt,  and  was  besieging  the  garrison 
in  the  citadel.  Troops  were  sent  to  put  down  the  re¬ 
volt;  Pactyas,  however,  did  not  wait  for  their  arrival, 
but  fled  to  Cyme,  on  which  the  Persian  general  de¬ 
manded  his  extradition.  The  men  of  Cyme  sent  to  ask 
advice  at  a  neighboring  oracle  of  Apollo,  and  the  an¬ 
swer  came  that  Pactyas  was  to  be  given  up.  Some  of  the 
citizens,  not  satisfied  with  this  answer,  thought  the  en¬ 
voys  must  have  made  a  mistake,  and  sent  again  to  rem¬ 
onstrate  with  the  god,  but  the  answer  was  repeated; 
whereupon  Aristodicus,  t.lie  principal  envoy,  went 
round  the 'temple  and  cleared  away  all  the  nests  of  spar¬ 
rows  and  other  birds  that  he  found  there.  While  he 
was  thus  engaged,  a  voice  came  from  the  sanctuary, — 
“Unholy  man,  darest  thou  to  tear  my  suppliants  from 
my  temple?”  on  which  Aristodicus,  by  no  means 
abashed,  replied,  “  O  king,  thou  canst  protect  thine 
own  suppliants,  and  yet  thou  orderest  the  Cymseans  to 
surrender  theirs.”  “I  do,”  answered  the  god,  “that 
you  may  the  sooner  perish ;  for  it  was  in  the  naughti¬ 
ness  of  your  hearts  that  you  came  to  consult  me  on  such 
a  matter.”*  Eventually  they  sent  Pactyas  to  Chios  for 
safety;  but  the  Chians  gave  him  up  to  the  Persians, 
even  tearing  him  from  the  temple  of  Minerva;  and  Atar- 
neus,  a  district  opposite  Lesbos,  was  paid  them  as  the 
price  of  blood.  But  there  was  a  curse  on  the  produce 
of  Atarneus  for  ever. 

The  Persians  now  proceeded  to  punish  the  revolted 


*  The  remarkable  answer  attributed  here  to  the  oracle  may 
serve  to  illustrate  the  permission  given  to  Balaam  to  go  with  the 
messengers  of  Balak.  Even  to  the  heathen  mind,  there  were 
questions  of  conscience  so  clear,  that  to  consult  heaven  specially 
in  the  matter  was  a  mockery.  [See  the  almost  parallel  case  of 
Glaucus,  ch.  viii.] 


30 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Lydians  and  Ionians,  and  Harpagus,  the  king-maker, 
who  had  deposed  Astyages,  forthwith  beleaguered  Pho- 
caea.  The  inhabitants  of  this  city,  however,  preferred 
exile  to  slavery;  taking  an  oath  never  to  return  until  a 
bar  of  iron,  which  they  sank  in  the  sea,  should  rise  and 
float,  they  set  sail,  and,  after  a  multitude  of  adventures, 
found  a  resting-place  on  the  coast  of  Italy. 

Most  of  the  other  towns  on  the  coast  were  subdued 
after  a  gallant  resistance,  and  the  islanders  gave  them¬ 
selves  up.  Then  Harpagus  turned  inland  against  the 
Carians  and  Lycians.  The  Lycians  deserve  notice  as 
the  reputed  inventors  of  crests  to  helmets,  and  of  her¬ 
aldic  devices.  The  Carians  were  early  advocates  of 
the  rights  of  women;  naming  men  not  after  their  fa¬ 
thers,  as  was  usual,  but  after  their  mothers.  The  Ly¬ 
cians  of  Xantlius*  made  a  desperate  resistance.  Find¬ 
ing  they  could  not  beat  the  Persians  in  the  field,  they 
made  a  great  pile,  on  which  they  burnt  their  wives  and 
children,  and  all  their  valuables,  and  then  sallied  out 
and  perished  in  battle  to  a  man.  Their  example  was 
imitated  by  Saguntum  in  Spain  in  the  second  Punic 
war. 

While  Harpagus  was  thus  subduing  the  coast,  Cyrus 
was  pursuing  his  conquests  in  Upper  Asia.  He  turned 
his  arms  against  Labynetus,  king  of  Babylon.  This 
renowned  city,  says  our  historian,  formed  a  vast  square 
fifty-five  miles  in  circuit.  Its  double  walls  were  340 
feet  high  (nearly  as  high  as  St.  Vincent’s  rock  at  Bris¬ 
tol)  and  85  feet  thick.  The  measurements  seem  enor¬ 
mous,  yet  the  great  wall  of  China  shows  such  works  to 


*  About  thirty  years  ago  the  British  Museum  was  enriched  by 
some  beautiful  marbles  brought  from'Xanthus  by  an  expedition 
which  explored  Lycia  under  the  conduct  of  Sir  Charles  Fel- 
lowes. 


HERODOTUS. 


31 


be  possible,  when  absolute  power  commands  unlimited 
labor.  The  city  itself  was  cut  in  two  by  the  river  Eu¬ 
phrates,  the  quays  being  fenced  by  walls  with  water- 
gates  for  communication.  One  half  contained  the 
king’s  palace,  the  other  the  great  sacred  tower  of  Belus 
(Bel  or  Baal)  with  its  external  winding  ascent.  Baby¬ 
lon  was  in  fact  a  fortified  province  rather  than  a  city; 
it  resembled  Jeddo  in  Japan,  in  being  a  collection  of 
country  houses  with  small  farms  and  gardens  attached. 
It  seems  to  have  been  the  ideal  of  what  a  great  city 
ought  to  be,  especially  in  days  of  internal  railroads. 
London,  containing  its  millions,  wdth  its  thin  houses 
laterally  squeezed  together,  or  Paris,  with  its  horizontal 
piles  of  flats,  and  no  corresponding  spaces,  would  have 
excited  the  horror  of  the  ancients,  who  in  some  respects 
wrere  more  civilized  than  ourselvss.  Herodotus  attrib¬ 
utes  the  great  engineering  works  about  Babylon,  to  pre¬ 
vent  the  Euphrates  from  overflowing  the  country, 
chiefly  to  two  queens,  Semiramis*  and  Nitocris,  be¬ 
tween  whom  he  places  an  interval  of  five  generations. 
Of  this  latter  he  relates  a  striking  anecdote. 

“  She  built  for  herself  a  tomb  above  the  most  fre¬ 
quented  gateway  of  the  city,  exactly  over  the  gates,  and 
engraved  on  it  the  following  inscription:  “If  any  of 
the  kings  of  Babylon  who  come  after  me  shall  be  in 
need  of  money,  let  him  open  my  tomb  and  take  there¬ 
from  as  much  as  he  will ;  but  unless  he  is  in  need,  let 
him  not  open  it,  else  will  it  be  worse  for  him.”  Now 
this  tomb  remained  undisturbed  until  the  kingdom  fell 
to  Darius.  But  he  thought  it  absurd  that  this  gateway 


*  This  queen  appears  to  have  really  reigned  in  conjunction 
with  her  husband.  She  is  probably  not  the  great  queen  known 
T>y  the  same  name. 


32 


TEE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 

should  be  made  no  use  of — for  it  was  not  used,  because 
one  would  have  had  to  pass  under  the  dead  body  as 
one  went  out — and  that  when  money  was  lying  there 
idle,  and  calling  out  for  some  one  to  take  it,  he  should 
not  lay  his  hand  on  it.  So  he  opened  the  tomb  and 
found  no  money  at  all,  but  only  the  dead  body,  and 
these  words  written : — “Ifthouwert  not  the  greediest 
of  men,  and  shameless  in  thy  greed,  thou  wouldst  not 
have  disturbed  the  resting-place  of  the  dead.” 

Although  the  author  notices  most  of  the  wonders  of 
Babylon,  he  makes  no  mention  of  the  hanging-gardens, 
which  excited  the  astonishment  of  later  writers.  Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar  is  said  to  have  constructed  them  out  of  affec¬ 
tion  for  a  Median  wife,  that  she  might  not  be  afflicted 
with  a  Swiss  longing  for  her  native  mountain  scenery.* 

Having  defeated  the  Babylonians  in  battle,  Cyrus 
drove  them  inside  their  huge  walls.  There  they 
laughed  at  his  efforts,  having  good  store  of  provisions 
for  many  years.  But  their  enemy  proved  himself  as 
good  an  engineer  as  any  of  their  queens,  historical  or 
fabulous.  Taking  advantage  of  reservoirs  previously 
existing,  he  turned  off  by  a  canal  the  waters  of  the 
Euphrates,  and  the  Persians  walked  into  the  city  dry- 
shod  by  the  bed  of  the  river,  even  the  water-gates  hav¬ 
ing  been  left  open  by  incomprehensible  carelessness. 
Those  who  were  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  says  Herodo¬ 
tus,  were  still  feasting,  dancing,  and  revelling,  after  the 
Persians  had  entered.  It  is  the  night  described  in  the 
Book  of  Daniel,  when  the  terrible  “  handwriting”  was 
seen  upon  the  wall.f 

*  So  a  great  fox-hunter,  who  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
leave  England,  is  said  to  have  turned  his  conservatory  into  a  lit¬ 
tle  Italy  for  his  delicate  wife. 

t  The  names  of  the  Eastern  kings  are  so  variously  given,  that 


HERODOTUS. ; 


33 


I 

The  Babylonians  were  a  luxurious  people.  Their 
full  dress  was  a  long  linen  tunic,  with  a  woollen  robe 
over  it,  and  a  short  white  cloak  or  cape  over  the 
shoulder.  Though  they  wore  their  hair  long,  they 
swathed  their  heads  iu  turbans,  and  perfumed  them¬ 
selves  all  over.  Each  citizen  carried  liis  walking-staff, 
carved  at  the  top  with  the  likeness  of  some  natural 
object — such  as  an  apple,  a  rose,  a  lily,  or  an  eagle— 
and  had  also  his  private  signet.  Of  these  seals  (which 
are  hollow  cylinders)  great  numbers  have  been  found 
during  the  late  explorations,  and  brought  to  Europe.* * 

Herodotus  records  one  of  their  customs,  which, 
whether  in  jest  or  earnest,  he  declares  to  be  the 
wisest  he  ever  heard  of.  This  was  their  wife-auction, 
by  which  they  managed  to  find  husbands  for  all  their 
young  womem.  The  greatest  beauty  was  put  up  first, 
and  knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder,  then  the  next 
in  the  order  of  comeliness — and  so  on  to  the  damsel 
who  was  equidistant  between  beauty  and  plainness,  who 
was  given  away  gratis.  Then  the  least  plain  was  put 
up,  and  knocked  down  to  the  gallant  who  would  marry 
her  for  the  smallest  consideration, — and  so  till  even  the 
plainest  was  got  rid  of  to  some  cynical  worthy  who  de- 
cidedly  preferred  lucre  to  looks.  By  transferring  to 


it  is  almost  impossible  to  identify  them  either  in  sacred  or  pro¬ 
fane  history.  The  Labynetus  of  Herodotus  is  Nabonidus,  or  Na- 
bonadius,  in  other  writers.  The  “Belshazzar”  whom  Daniel 
calls  “king”  was  probably  his  son,  associated  with  him  in  the 
government.  His  name  appears  in  inscriptions  as  Bilshar-uzur. 
We  know  from  other  authorities  that  Labynetus  himself  was 
not  in  the  city  at  its  capture.— See  Rawlinson’s  Herodotus,  i. 
524,  etc. 

*  They  are  commonly  of  some  composition,  but  occasionally 
have  been  found  in  amethyst,  cornelian,  agate,  etc.— Layard’s 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  602,  etc. 


34 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


the  scale  of  the  ill-favored  the  prices  paid  for  the  fair, 
beauty  was  made  to  endow  ugliness,  and  the  rich  man's 
taste  was  the  poor  man’s  gain.  The  Babylonian  mar¬ 
riage-market  might  perhaps  be  advantageously  adopted 
in  some  modern  countries  where  marriage  is  still  made 
a  commercial  matter.  It  at  least  possesses  the  merit  of 
honesty  and  openness,  and  tends  to  a  fair  distribution  of 
the  gifts  of  fortune. 

Another  Babylonian  custom,  of  which  Herodotus 
strongly  approves,  was  that  of  employing  no  profes¬ 
sional  physicians,  but  placing  the  sick  in  the  gate  of  the 
city,  that  they  might  get  advice  respecting  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  their  diseases  from  every  passer-by,  and  thus 
profit  by  the  experience  of  those  who  had  been  afflicted 
in  the  same  way  as  themselves.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  absence  of  regular  practitioners,  the 
alternative  would  certainly  seem  one  of  the  exceptional 
cases  where  wisdom  is  not  found  in  a  multitude  of 
counsellors. 

Having  annexed  this  great  and  rich  province  to  his 
dominions,  Cyrus  seems  to  have  been  intoxicated  with 
success,  or,  in  our  author’s  view,  to  have  tilled  up  the 
measure  of  his  prosperity,  which  now  began  to  run  over 
in  insolent  self-confidence.  He  made  an  expedition 
against  the  Massagetse  or  Greater  Goths  who  lived  in 
the  steppes  near  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  were  ruled  by 
an  Amazonian  widow  named  Tomjwis.  While  encamp¬ 
ing  against  her,  Cyrus  dreamed  that  Darius,  the  son 
of  Hystaspes,  a  young  noble  of  the  royal  house  of 
Persia,  appeared  to  him  with  wings  on  his  shoulders 
(like  some  of  the  Assyrian  gods  whose  figures  he  must 
have  seen),  with  one  of  which  he  overshadowed  Asia 
and  the  other  Europe.  This  portended  his  fall,  and  the 
ultimate  accession  of  Darius.  At  first  he  gained  a  par- 


HERODOTUS. 


35 


tial  advantage  by  the  stratagem  of  leaving  a  camp 
stored  with  wine  to  be  plundered  by  the  water-drinking 
Massagetre,  and  then  returning  and  massacring  them  in 
their  sleep.  This  was  the  shrewd  advice  of  Croesus  the 
Lydian,  whom  Cyrus  had  taken  with  him  on  the  expe¬ 
dition.  Among  the  prisoners  taken  was  the  son  of  the 
Massagetan  queen.  Cyrus  released  him  from  his  bonds 
at  his  own  request;  but  the  youth,  unable  to  bear 
his  disgrace,  only  took  advantage  of  his  liberty  to  kill 
himself.  At  length  the  invaders  were  forced  to  a  gen¬ 
eral  action — the  fiercest,  sa}rs  Herodotus,  ever  fought 
between  barbarian  armies.  The  Persians  were  com¬ 
pletely  defeated,  and  Cyrus  himself  was  slain,  after  a 
reign  of  twenty-nine  years.  Queen  Tomyris,  exas¬ 
perated  by  the  treacherous  slaughter  of  her  army  and 
the  death  of  her  son,  had  threatened  to  give  the  blood¬ 
thirsty  invader  his  fill  of  blood;  she  kept  her  word  by 
filling  a  skin  with  it,  and  plunging  into  it  his  severed  . 
head. 

Such  is  the  account  which  Herodotus  gives  of  the 
death  of  the  great  Eastern  conquerer,  so  famous  both 
in  sacred  and  profane  history.  He  confesses  that  he 
has  only  chosen  one  legend  out  of  many.  There  is 
little  doubt,  however,  that  he  died  in  battle.  But  the 
Persian  poets  assigned  a  very  different  fate  to  their 
national  hero,  Kai  Khusru,  as  his  name  stands  in  their 
language.  They  will  not  allow  that  he  died  at  all. 
When  he  grew  old,  they  say,  he  one  day  took  leave  of 
his  attendants  on  the  banks  of  a  pleasant  stream,  and 
was  seen  no  more.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  Arthur  and 
Barbarossa,  and  all  the  great  favorites  of  a  nation,  they 
looked  forward  to  his  coming  again,  more  powerful  and 
glorious  than  ever. 

These  Massagetfie,  says  our  author,  resembled  the 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Scythians,  but  could  fight  on  foot  as  well  as  on  horse¬ 
back,  their  favorite  weapon  being,  as  with  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  a  battle-axe  or  bill.  They  had  the  peculiar 
custom  of  sacrificing  their  old  people,  and  then  feasting 
on  them,  and  natural  death  was  considered  a  misfor¬ 
tune.  This  curious  people,  whose  descendants  maybe 
now  in  northern  or  western  Europe,  knew  nothing  of 
tillage,  and  lived  on  fiesh,  fish,  and  milk.  Their  only 
deity,  known  to  Herodotus,  was  the  Sun.  To  him  they 
sacrificed  the  horse,  with  the  notion  that  it  was  right  to 
bestow  the  swiftest  of  creatures  on  the  swiftest  of  gods. 
The  Persians  also  attached  a  certain  sanctity  to  some 
breeds  of  horses,  and  the  Teutonic  conquerors  of  Britain 
bore  a  horse  as  their  cognizance.  Some  say  that  Hen- 
gliist  and  Horsa  were  not  names  of  men,  but  only  rep¬ 
resented  a  people  using  this  national  symbol.  This 
rude  heraldry  of  our  northern  ancestors — or  conquerors 
— may  still  be  traced  in  the  “  White  Horse  ”  cut  out  on 
the  chalk-liills  in  more  than  one  place  on  our  Berkshire 
and  Wiltshire  downs. 


CHAPTER  III. 

EGYPT. 

“  In  the  afternoon  they  came  unto  a  land 
In  which  it  seemed  always  afternoon.” 

— Tennyson,  “  Lotos-Eaters.” 

Of  all  the  nine  books  of  Herodotus,  the  second, 
which  bears  the  name  of  the  Muse  “  Euterpe,”  is  incom¬ 
parably  the  one  of  deepest  interest  to  the  modern  reader, 
as  giving  glimpses,  such  as  are  found  nowhere  else  but 


HERODOTUS. 


87 


in  Scripture,  of  the  infancy  of  the  human  race,  and  as 
propounding  important  scientific  problems,  which  can, 
if  ever,  only  find  their  solution  in  remote  futurity.  It 
is,  moreover,  the  portion  of  his  work  which  is  most 
strongly  stamped  with  the  characteristics  of  the  author’s 
personality.  It  must  ever  be  borne  in  mind  that  He¬ 
rodotus  is  not  a  historian  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
term.  He  is  the  representative  writer  of  a  class  who 
stand  midway  between  poetical  annalists  like  Homer 
and  critical  historians  like  Thucydides.  They  wrote 
their  Iliads  in  prose,  making  no  sharp  distinction  be¬ 
tween  truth  and  fiction.  They  did  not  yet  look  upon 
the  verification  of  their  facts  as  a  duty,  but  jotted  down 
all  that  they  heard  and  saw,  an  instinctive  love  of  truth 
alone  suggesting  occasional  scepticism  as  to.  very  ex¬ 
traordinary  marvels,  so  that  the  modern  reader  may  just 
observe  the  dawning  of  the  critical  spirit.  Predomi¬ 
nantly  in  his  Egypt,  Herodotus  appears  as  the  traveler 
and  archaeologist;  nor  is  he  fairly  afloat  on  the  current 
of  history  until  he  launches  himself  into  the  narrative 
of  the  Persian  invasions  of  Greece,  of  the  circumstances 
of  which  he  had  more  immediate  knowledge — if  not  as 
an  eye-witness,  yet  from  those  who  had  themselves  been 
eye-witnesses. 

Egypt  has  been  in  all  ages  the  land  of  wonders,  from 
the  time  when  its  “magicians”  found  their  enchant¬ 
ments  fail  before  the  mightier  Power  which  was  with 
Moses,  to  that  when  Napoleon  told  his  soldiers  that 
from  the  top  of  the  Pyramids  four  thousand  years  looked 
down  on  their  struggle  with  the  Mamelukes, — and  to 
our  own  day,  when  a  French  engineer  repeats  the  feat 
of  the  old  native  kings  and  the  Greek  Ptolemies,  in 
marrying  by  a  canal  the  Red  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean; 
an  achievement  which  will  make  the  name  of  Lesseps 


88 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


immortal,  if  the  canal  can  only  be  kept  clear  of  sand. 
The  civilization  of  Egypt  is  older  than  time — or  at  least, 
than  its  records.  Her  kings  were  counted  wholesale — 
not  by  individuals,  but  by  dynasties,  of  which  there 
were  said  to  have  been  thirty-one,  exclusive  of  gods  and 
heroes.  She  was  the  mother  of  the  arts  to  Greece,  as 
Greece  has  been  to  us.  Her  monuments  are  nearly  as 
vast  and  as  seemingly  indestructible  as  the  everlasting 
hills  themselves,  and  the  study  of  her  mere  remnants 
seems  to  present  a  held  as  inexhaustible  as  that  of  na¬ 
ture.  No  wonder  that  Herodotus  willingly  lingered  in 
this  interesting  country.  He  was  no  holiday  traveler, 
but  one  all  ears  and  eyes,  not  likely  to  let  any  fact  or 
object  escape  him  through  carelessness  or  want  of  curi¬ 
osity. 

The  Egyptians  were  wont  to  boast  that  they  were  the 
oldest  people  in  the  world;  but  our  author  says  that 
their  king  Psammetichus  once  put  this  to  the  proof,  and 
decided  against  them.  Two  infants  were  kept  carefully 
apart  from  human  society,  their  attendants  being  for¬ 
bidden  to  utter  a  word  before  them.  Under  these  cir¬ 
cumstances  women  as  nurses  were  out  of  the  question, 
and  they  were  suckled  by  goats.  [There  was  indeed  a 
Greek  version  of  the  legend,  which  said  that  the  chil¬ 
dren  were  nursed  by  women — with  their  tongues  cut 
out.]  One  day,  when  about  two  years  old,  they  came 
to  their  keeper,  stretching  out  their  hands,  and  calling 
“Bekkosl  bekkos!”  This  being  Phrygian  for  “  bread,” 
the  palm  of  antiquity  was  adjudged  to  the  Phrygians. 
The  test  was  scarcely  trustworthy,  for  probably  enough 
the  cry  was  only  an  imitation  of  the  bleat  of  the  goats. 
It  has  indeed  been  claimed  by  etymologists  as  the  San¬ 
scrit  root  ilpac,”  whence  our  word  “cook”  is  said  to 


HERODOTUS. 


39 


be  derived.  The  Germans,  again,  recognize  in  it  their 
own  “  bakken”  =  bake.* 

According  to  the  priests,  who  were  Herodotus’s  chief 
informants,  the  whole  country  except  the  district  of 
Thebes,  seven  days’  sail  up  the  Nile  from  the  sea,  was 
originally  a  swamp.  To  the  truth  of  this  our  author 
was  ready  to  testify,  as  the  whole  Delta  (called  so  from 
the  shape  of  the  Greek  letter  z/,  our  D)  appeared  to  him 
to  be  “  the  gift  of  the  river.”  This  formation  certainly 
required  time,  but  he  considered  that  the  Nile  was  so 
energetic,  that  in  ten  thousand  years  (which  is,  after  all, 
a  very  moderate  geological  period)  it  might  even  deposit 
alluvial  soil  enough  to  fill  up  the  Arabian  gulf  of  the 
Red  Sea.  The  priests  appear  to  have  given  him  very 
good  data  for  supplementing  his  own  observations  on 
the  physical  phenomena  of  the  country;  and  in  these 
details  he  evinces  a  patient  investigation  of  facts  which 
would  do  credit  to  any  age,  however  scientific.  He  only 
becomes  fanciful  when  he  begins  to  speculate  on  the 
unknown.  With  respect  to  the  causes  of  the  annual  in¬ 
undations  of  the  Nile,  he  could,  naturally  enough,  get 
no  trustworthy  information.  It  struck  him  as  par¬ 
ticularly  strange  that  the  Nile,  unlike  other  rivers,  should 
begin  to  rise  with  the  summer  solstice,  and  be  in  a  state 
of  flood  for  a  hundred  days  afterwards.  Certain  Greeks 
who  affected  a  reputation  for  science  endeavored  to  ac¬ 
count  for  the  phenomenon  in  three  ways.  The  third, 
which  appeared  to  Herodotus  the  least  plausible  expla¬ 
nation,  was,  that  the  Nile  was  swollen  by  melting  snows, 
though  it  flows  through  the  torrid  land  of  the  Ethiopians 
into  Egypt — which  seemed  to  him  a  contradiction.  Yet 


*  Englishmen  have  suggested  that  it  may  have  been  a  feeble 
attempt  to  call  for  “  breakfast.” 


40 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


this  theory  was  so  near  the  actual  truth,  that  the  inun- 
nations  are  caused  by  the  summer  rains  in  the  highlands 
of  Abyssinia  and  on  the  equatorial  table-land  of  Africa. 
That  Herodotus  had  seen  an  inundation  of  the  river  is 
tolerably  certain,  from  his  description  of  the  appearance 
of  the  country  ai  such  times.  He  speaks  of  the  towns 
and  villages  standing  out  of  the  water  “like  the  islands 
in  the  iEgean  Sea;”  a  graphic  picture,  of  which  modern 
travelers  have  recognized  the  truth.  Adopting  neither 
of  the  theories  which  had  been  advanced,  Herodotus 
modestly  propounds  one  of  his  own,  which  is  curious, 
but  of  no  scientific  value,  as  resting  on  false  cosmo- 
grapliical  data. 

As  to  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  he  says  that  he  never 
met  with  but  one  person  who  professed  to  know  any¬ 
thing  about  them.  This  was  the  registrar  of  the  treasury 
of  Minerva  at  Sais;  but  when  he  began  to  talk  about 
two  conical  hills—  “  called  Kroplii  and  Moplii” — be¬ 
tween  Syene  and  Elephantine  (below  the  cataracts), 
Herodotus  thought  he  could  hardty  be  quite  serious. 
Between  those  hills,  said  his  informant,  lay  the  foun¬ 
tains  of  the  Nile,  of  unfathomable  depth.  Half  the 
water  ran  to  Egypt,  the  other  half  to  Ethiopia.  Psam- 
metichus  had  tried  to  sound  them  with  a  rope  many 
thousand  fathoms  in  length,  but  there  were  such  strong 
eddies  in  the  water  that  the  bottom  of  the  spring  could 
never  be  reached.  Herodotus  himself  wTent  up  the  Nile 
as  far  as  Elephantine — that  is,  did  not  get  beyond  the 
first  cataract;  and  though  he  learnt  much  by  inquiry  as 
to  the  country  generally,  he  could  throw  no  additional 
light  on  the  great  question.  But  a  story  reached  him 
originally  derived  from  certain  Nasamonians — a  people 
inhabiting  the  edge  of  the  desert — that  once  on  a  time 
certain  “wild  young  men,”  sons  of  their  chiefs,  took  it 


HERODOTUS. 


41 


into  their  heads  to  draw  lots  which  of  them  should  go 
and  explore  the  desert  of  Libya,  and  try  to  get  farther 
than  any  one  had  gone  before.  Five  of  their  number  set 
out,  well  supplied  with  food  and  water,  and  passed  first 
through  the  inhabited  region,  then  through  a  country 
tenanted  only  by  wild  beasts,  and  then  entered  the 
desert,  taking  a  direction  from  east  to  west.  After  pro¬ 
ceeding  for  many  days  over  a  sandy  waste,  they  came 
at  last  to  a  plain  where  they  found  fruit-trees,  and  began 
to  pluck  the  fruit.  While  they  were  doing  so,  certain 
very  small  men  came  upon  them  and  took  them  prisoners. 
The  Nasamonians  could  not  understand  them,  nor  make 
themselves  understood.  They  were  led  by  them  across 
vast  marshes,  and  at  last  came  to  a  town  where  all  the 
inhabitants  were  black  dwarfs  like  their  captors.  A 
great  river  flowed  by  the  town  from  west  to  east,  abound¬ 
ing  in  crocodiles.  And  all  the  people  in  the  town  were 
wizards.  It  was  added  that  the  explorers  returned  in 
safety  from  their  perilous  journey.  If  the  Bushmen 
now  surviving  at  the  Cape,  and  formerly  more  exten¬ 
sively  spread  over  Africa,  were  a  black  race,  which  they 
are  not,  we  might  suppose  them  to  be  the  descendants 
of  the  little  men  spoken  of  by  Herodotus.  Their  color 
may,  however,  have  been  modified  by  the  temperate 
climate  of  South  Africa  in  the  course  of  long  ages.  The 
tribe  of  Dokos,  in  the  south-west  of  Abyssinia,  are 
dwarfish,  and  answer  very  nearly  to  Herodotus’s  des¬ 
cription.  Herodotus  was  inclined  to  identify  the  Nile 
with  the  river  flowing  by  the  mysterious  city.* 

It  is  strange  that  the  oldest  geographical  problem  in 
the  world  should  be  a  problem  still,  though  now  prob- 


*  It  was  more  probably,  as  Mr.  Ratvlinson  and  Mr.  Blakesley 
both  think,  the  Niger,  and  the  city  may  have  been  Timbuctoo, 


43 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


ably  in  the  course  of  solution.  The  nearest  approach  to 
the  truth  appears  to  have  been  made  by  the  Alexandrian 
geographer,  Ptolemy,  who  had  heard  of  certain  lakes 
as  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  and  placed  them  some  ten 
degrees  south  of  the  equator.  The  question  slumbered 
through  the  middle  ages,  and  one  affluent  after  another 
was  looked  upon  as  the  true  Nile,  till  Bruce  was  for 
some  time  supposed  to  have  set  the  question  at  rest  in 
the  eighteenth  century  by  the  discovery  of  the  source 
of  the  Blue  River.  Quite  of  late  years  it  was  agreed 
again  that  the  White  River  was  the  main  branch;  and 
in  1857  Captain  Speke,  setting  out  from  Zanzibar,  dis¬ 
covered  the  Victoria  Lake,  which  is  now  the  farthest 
authenticated  source  in  an  easterly  direction,  while  Sir 
Samuel  Baker’s  Albert  Lake  is  the  farthest  authenti¬ 
cated  source  in  a  Westerly.  Up  to  this  time  Speke  and 
his  companion  Major  Grant  are  the  only  men  who  have 
actually  crossed  Africa  from  south-east  to  north,  and  as 
yet  the  honors  of  discovery  must  be  supposed  to  rest 
with  them. 

In  treating  of  the  wonders  of  Egypt,  Herodotus  cer¬ 
tainly  exaggerates  on  some  points  from  love  of  paradox, 
as  when  he  says  that  as  the  Nile  differs  from  all  other 
rivers  in  its  nature,  so  the  Egyptians  differ  from  all 
other  men  in  their  habits,  the  men  doing  what  is  usually 
considered  as  women’s  work,  and  the  women  men’s 
work;  for  in  this  he  is  refuted  by  the  Egyptian  paint¬ 
ings,  which  represent  each  sex  as  usually  engaged  in  its 
proper  occupation.  But  a  Greek  must  have  been  much 
struck  with  the  comparative  freedom  of  the  Egyptian 
women,  so  unlike  the  life  of  the  Hellenic  “  lady’s  bower,” 
or  the  Asiatic  harem.  Sophocles,  in  his  “CEdipus  at 
Colonus,”  has  made  a  beautiful  application  of  this  re¬ 
corded  contrast  to  the  helpful  piety  of  the  daughters 


HERODOTUS. 


48 


and  the  selfish  luxury  of  the  sons  of  the  blind  hero, 
which  would  seem  to  show  that  lie  wrote  the  play  fresh 
from  the  perusal  of  his  friend’s  Egypt. 

Our  author  makes  the  observation  that  the  Egyptians 
were  the  first  nation  who,  holding  the  soul  to  be  immor¬ 
tal,  asserted  its  migration  after  death  through  the  whole 
round  of  created  beings,  till  it  lived  again  in  another 
man,  which  occupied  a  cycle  of  three  thousand  years. 
This  doctrine  of  a  “  circle  of  necessity”  was  held  alike 
by  Buddhists,  Druids,  and — if  Josephus  may  be  trusted 
— by  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees  among  the  Jews.  But 
this  Egyptian  doctrine,  which  is  profusely  illustrated 
on  the  tombs,  suffered  the  wicked  only  to  descend  into 
animals,  while  the  good  passed  at  once  into  a  state  of 
happiness.  A  striking  custom  which  Herodotus  de¬ 
scribes  would  seem  to  show  that  to  them,  as  to  the 
Greeks,  the  future  existence  was  not  a  cheering  pros¬ 
pect. 

Iu  the  social  banquets  of  the  rich,  as  soon  as  the 
feast  is  ended,  a  man  carries  round  a  wooden  figure  of 
a  corpse  iu  its  coffin,  graven  and  painted  so  as  to  re¬ 
semble  the  reality  as  nearly  as  possible,  from  one  to 
two  cubits  long.  And  as  he  shows  it  to  each  of  the 
guests,  he  says,  “Look  on  this,  and  drink,  and  be 
merry;  for  when  thou  art  dead,  such  shalt  thou  be.” 

The  “  skeleton  at  the  banquet”  has  pointed  many  a 
moral  for  ancient  and  modern  writers.  St.  Paul  may 
have  had  it  iu  mind  when  he  quoted  as  the  motto  of 
the  Sadducee,  “Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die,”  as  well  as  Sliakspeare,  when  he  makes  his 
Hamlet  moralize  over  Yorick’s  skull — “Now  get  you 
to  my  lady’s  chamber,  and  tell  her,  let  her  paint  an  inch 
thick,  to  this  favor  she  must  come.” 

Herodotus  considers  that  the  names  of  the  gods  came 


44 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY, . 


to  Greece  from  Egypt,  with  the  exception  of  Poseidon 
(Neptune),  Castor  and  Pollux,  Here  (Juno),  Hestia, 
Themis,  the  Graces  and  the  Nereids.  All  these  the 
Greeks  were  said  to  have  inherited  from  the  Pelasgians, 
with  the  exception  of  the  sea-god  Poseidon,  with  whom 
they  became  acquainted  through  the  Libyans.  The 
Egyptians,  unlike  the  Greeks,  paid  no  honor  to  heroes 
or  demigods;  for  their  god  Osiris  (who  corresponded  to 
Bacchus)  appeared  on  earth  only  as  a  manifestation  or 
Avatar  of  Deity.  Among  the  mythological  marvels 
of  the  Egyptians  Herodotus  relates  that  they  accounted 
cows  as  sacred  to  Isis,  the  moon-goddess,  represented 
with  horns,  and  objected  to  kill  them  as  food — a  prac¬ 
tice  which  finds  it  parallel  in  India  at  the  present  day. 
The  sacredness  of  animals  generally,  in  Egypt,  struck 
our  traveller  forcibly.  For  each  species  there  were  cer¬ 
tain  appointed  guardians,  who  tended  and  fed  them, 
and  the  office  was  hereditary.  To  kill  one  of  these 
sacred  animals  was  a  capital  offence,  unless  done  acci¬ 
dentally,  in  which  case  a  fine  wTas  inflicted;  but  to  kill 
an  ibis  or  a  hawk  was  death  without  reprieve.  Cats 
were  so  much  respected  that,  in  case  of  a  fire  occurring, 
the  Egyptians  would  let  the  house  be  burnt  before  their 
eyes,  all  their  attention  being  given  to  saving  the  cats; 
which,  however,  they  usually  found  impossible,  as  the 
animals  (no  doubt  in  terror  at  the  well-meant  efforts  of 
their  friends)  had  a  trick  of  jumping  into  the  flames. 
If  they  died,  nevertheless,  it  was  thought  to  be  a  ter¬ 
rible  misfortune.  When  a  cat  died  a  natural  death,  all 
the  inmates  of  a  house  went  into  mourning  by  shaving 
their  eyebrows,  and  they  shaved  their  heads  and  their 
whole  bodies  when  a  dog  died.  The  dead  cats  were 
embalmed,  and  their  mummies  stored  in  the  sacred  city 
of  Bubastis;  but  the  dogs  were  buried  in  their  own  cit- 


HERODOTUS. 


45 


ies,  as  were  also  the  ichneumons.  The  hawks  and 
shrew-mice  were  conveyed  to  Buto,  and  the  ibises  to 
Hermopolis.  It  would  seem  by  this  that  the  animals 
about  whose  funerals  so  much  trouble  was  taken  were 
more  sacred  than  the  rest.*  The  crocodile,  of  which 
Herodotus  gives  a  description,  perhaps  as  fairly  accu¬ 
rate  as  could  be  expected  from  an  ordinary  observer, 
was  accounted  sacred  by  some  of  the  Egyptians;  for  in¬ 
stance,  by  the  people  about  Thebes,  and  those  about 
Lake  Mceris.  In  each  of  these  places  a  tame  crocodile 
was  kept,  who  wore  ear-rings  (or  rather  rings  in  the 
corresponding  holes)  of  glass  or  gold,  and  bracelets  on 
his  fore-paws.  Every  day  he  had  his  ration  of  bread 
and  meat,  and  when  he  died  he  was  buried  in  a  conse¬ 
crated  vault.  But  the  people  of  Elephantine,  so  far 
from  canonizing  these  animals,  thought  them  tolerable 
eating. 

Herodotus  gives  a  native  receipt  for  catching  croco¬ 
diles.  Bait  a  hook  with  a  chine  of  pork,  and  let  it  float 
to  about  the  middle  of  the  stream.  Let  a  confederate 
hold  a  living  pig  on  the  bank,  and  belabor  him  lustily. 
The  crocodile  hears  the  pig  squeak,  and,  making  for 
him,  encounters  the  pork,  which  he  swallows.  When 
the  men  on  shore  have  drawn  him  to  land,  plug  his  eyes 
with  mud;  after  that,  it  is  very  easy  to  kill  him.  T'his 
hitter  item  of  the  receipt  has  a  strong  affinity  to  an  old 
precept  about  “  putting  salt  on  a  bird’s  tail.”  A  very 
similar  mode  of  capture  (with  tnis  exception)  is  prac¬ 
ticed  by  the  natives  now.  The  name  “  crocodiles,”  as 
the  author  observes,  is  Ionic  Greek  for  “lizard;”  the 

*  Lane  says  that  the  modern  Egyptians  are  remarkably  kind 
to  animals.  On  one  occasion  a  lady  buried  a  favorite  dog  with 
all  the  honors  due  to  a  good  Mussulman,  and  houseless  cats  are 
fed  at  the  expense  of  the  Cadi  of  the  district. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Egyptians  themselves  calling  the  animal  “champsa.”  * 
He  is  somewhat  mistaken  in  his  account  of  the  hippo¬ 
potamus,  no  specimen  of  which  he  appears  to  have 
seen.  lie  gives  it  the  hoof  of  an  ox,  and  the  mane  and 
neigh  of  a  horse. 

The  sacred  bird  called  the  pheenix  Herodotus  con¬ 
fesses  he  never  saw  except  in  pictures.  Indeed  it  was 
rare  in  Egypt,  for  it  came  but  once  in  five  hundred 
years,  when  the  old  pheenix  died.  According  to  the 
pictures,  it  wTas  like  an  eagle,  with  plumage  partly  red 
and  partly  golden.  The  bird  was  said  to  come  from 
Arabia,  bringing  the  body  of  his  father  enclosed  in  a 
bail  of  myrrh,  that  he  might  bury  it  in  the  temple  of 
the  Sun.  Our  author  did  not  seem  to  be  acquainted 
with  that  other  version  of  the  pheenix  fable,  according 
to  which  it  returned  from  the  east  after  a  stated  period 
to  burn  itself  in  frankincense,  and  was  again  resusci¬ 
tated.  The  pheenix  wTas  an  emblem  of  the  soul  and  its 
supposed  migrations,  and  its  journey  to  the  east  typified 
the  constant  aspiration  of  the  soul  towards  the  sun.  Its 
period  of  migration  referred  to  a  solar  cycle  in  the 
Egyptian  calendar.  Pliny  says  that  the  name  was  de¬ 
rived  from  a  species  of  palm  in  Lower  Egypt,  which 
dies  down  to  the  root  and  then  is  renovated.  Ovid 
mal^s  the  bird  build  its  nest  on  a  palm.  In  hierogly¬ 
phic  language  the  palm-bough  is  the  sign  of  the  year. 

Amongst  other  wonders,  our  author  had  heard  of 
winged  serpents,  which  flew  across  from  Arabia,  and 
was  induced  to  undertake  a  journey  to  the  country 
whence  they  came,  where  he  says  he  saw  some  of  their 
bones.  The  ibises  were  said  to  destroy  them  as  they 

*  Apparently  an  attempt  to  write  the  name  msah,  still  to  be 
traced  in  the  Arabic  temsah.— See  Sir  G.  "Wilkinson's  note,  Raw- 
linson,  ii.  11G.  . — 


HERODOTUS. 


47 


flew,  which  caused  this  bird  to  be  held  in  great  honor 
by  the  Egyptians.  We  are  now  in  possession  of  the' 
probable  key  to  this  enigmatical  story,  which  illustrates 
both  the  simple  faith  and  painstaking  of  our  author, 
and  also  the  manner  in  which  myths  grow  out  of  the 
use  of  words.  When  scorpions  or  snakes  appear  in 
large  numbers  in  the  houses  in  Upper  Egypt,  they  are 
supposed  to  be  brought  by  the  wind,  and  to  all  such 
objects  an  Arabic  word  is  applied  which  signifies  to  fly. 
Herodotus  doubtless  saw  pictures  of  a  winged  serpent 
attacked  by  the  ibis,  but  this  bird  typified  the  god 
Osiris  in  the  white  robes  of  his  purity  and  the  winged 
serpent  probably  the  Evil  principle.  The  ibis,  how¬ 
ever,  is  said  to  destroy  snakes.  His  mention  of  the 
harmless  horned  snakes  at  Thebes,  which  were  consid¬ 
ered  sacred,  and  buried  in  the  temple,  may  suggest  the 
prolific  subject  of  primeval  serpent- worship. 

The  description  which  Herodotus  gives  of  the  man¬ 
ners  and  customs  of  the  Egyptians  stamps  them  as  a 
highly  civilized  people.  In  the  reverence  paid  by 
young  men  to  their  elders,  he  considered  that  they  set 
a  good  example  to  the  Greeks.  In  the  medical  profes¬ 
sion  they  recognized  a  minute  division  of  labor,  some 
being  oculists,  others  dentists,  and  so  forth.*  Those 
who  embalmed  the  dead  (the  “physicians”  of  till? 
book  of  Genesis)  formed  a  profession  of  themselves. 
He  describes  at  length  three  methods  of  embalming 
(they  had  really  many  more),  which  were  adopted  in 
order  to  suit  the  means  of  their  customers,  as  modern 
undertakers  provide  for  funerals  at  different  tariffs. 
Amongst  other  local  peculiarities,  Herodotus  notices 


*“  O  virgin,  daughter  of  Egypt,  in  vain  shalt  thou  use  many 
medicines.” — Jer.  xlvi.  11. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


the  lotus-eaters  of  the  marsh-lands,  who  remind  us  of 
those  described  by  Homer  in  the  voyage  of  Ulysses. 
But  these  latter — if  they  are  to  be  identified  at  all — are 
to  be  recognized  rather  in  the  lotus-eating  tribe  whom 
our  author  mentions  in  a  subsequent  book  as  existing 
on  the  coast  of  Africa.  Their  lotus  vTas  probably  a 
kind  of  jujabe  (Zizyphus  napeca).  The  Egyptian  lotus 
wasakind  of  water-lily,  the  centre  of  whose  blossom  was 
dried,  crushed,  and  eaten,  as  also  its  round  root.  The 
seeds  of  another  water-lily,  wfiiose  blossoms  were  like  a 
rose,  were  also  eaten,  as  well  as  the  lower  steins  of  the 
byblus  or  papyrus,  whose  leaves  were  used  for  paper 
and  other  purposes.  The  mosquitoes  were  as  great  a 
nuisance  in  Egypt  formerly  as  now.  Herodotus  says 
that  some  of  the  natives,  to  avoid  them,  slept  on  towers 
exposed  to  the  wind;  but  in  the  marshes  each  mail 
had  a  net,  which  served  the  double  purpose  of  catching 
fish  by  day  and  acting  as  a  mosquito-curtain  at  night. 

For  the  early  history  of  the  country  Herodotus  had 
to  depend  upon  his  informants,  who  were  usually  the 
priests,  especially  those  of  Heliopolis — the  Greek  name 
by  which  he  knew  the  oldest  capital  of  Egypt,  Ei  n-re, 
the  On  or  Aon  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures — the  “  City  of 
the  Sun.”*  Their  colleges  of  priests  there  was  in  fact 
the  university  of  Egypt;  and  whatever  faith  we  may 
place  in  their  historical  records,  their  proficiency  in 
mathematics  and  astronomy  was  very  considerable  in¬ 
deed.  They  asserted  that  the  first  kings  of  Egypt  were 


*  The  “Aven”of  Ezek.  xxx.  17;  translated  into,  the  HebreAV 
Beth-shemesli— “  House  of  the  Sun”  — Jer.  xliii.  13.  The  silt  of 
the  Nile  has  now  covered  most  of  its  monuments  and  buildings 
but  its  massive  walls  may  still  be  traced,  and  a  solitary  granite 
obelisk,  said  to  be  near  4000  years  old,  marks  what  was  the  en¬ 
trance  to  the  temple  of  the  Sun. 


HERODOTUS. 


49 


gods,  “  who  dwelt  upon  earth  with  men.”  The  last  of 
tills  divine  dynasty  was  Horus,  son  of  Osiris — whom 
the  Greeks  identified  with  Apollo.  The  sufferings  and 
death  of  Osiris  were  the  great  mystery  of  the  Egyptian 
creed.  Herodotus  had  seen  his  burial-place  at  Sal's,  and 
knew  the  mysterious  rites  with  which,  under  cover  of 
night,  these  sufferings  were  commemorated.  But  he 
“  will  by  no  means  speak  of  them,”  or  even  mention 
the  god  by  name.  Either  the  priests  had  enjoined 
secrecy  upon  him  as  the  price  of  their  information;  or 
perhaps,  being  himself  initiated  in  the  Greek  Mysteries, 
he  had  a  scrupulous  reverence  for  those  of  Egypt. 
Osiris  was  the  great  principle  of  Good,  who  slew  his 
brother  Typhon,  the  representative  of  Evil;  and  is  pict¬ 
ured  in  the  hieroglyphic  paintings  as  the  great  judge 
of  the  dead.  The  first  king  of  the  human  race  was  M§n, 
or  Menes,  the  founder  of  Memphis,  who  began  a  line  of 
three  hundred  and  thirty  monarchs  (including  one 
queen),  whose  names  were  read  off  to  Herodotus  from  a 
roll  of  papyrus.  Eighteen  were  said  to  be  Ethiopians. 
Of  most  of  these  kings  the  priests  professed  to  know 
little  more  than  the  names;  but  Mceris,  the  last  of 
them,  left  his  name  to  a  large  artificial  lake,  or  reser¬ 
voir,  near  the  “  City  of  Crocodiles,”  from  which  water 
was  conveyed  to  all  parts  of  the  neighborhood.  His 
successor,  Sesostris,  is  said  to  have  conquered  all  Asia, 
and  eren  to  have  subdued  Scythia  and  Thrace,  in 
Europe,  marking  the  limits  of  his  conquests  by  pillars — 
two  of  which,  in  Palestine,  Herodotus  declares  that  he 
himself  saw.*  Sesostris,  after  his  return  from  his 
conquests,  met  with  somewhat  too  warm  a  welcome 


*  There  is  little  doubt  that  these  are  the  tablets  still  to  be  seen 
near  Beyrout. 


50 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


from  his  brother,  whom  he  had  left  viceroy  of  Egypt. 
He  invited  the  hero  and  his  family  to  a  banquet, 
heaped  wood  all  round  the  building,  and  set  fire  to  it. 
Sesostris  only  escaped  by  sacrificing  (by  the  mother’s 
advice)  two  of  his  six  sons,  whose  bodies  he  used  to 
bridge  the  circle  of  flame.  Having  inflicted  condign 
punishment  on  liis  brother,  he  then  proceeded  to  utilize 
the  vast  multitudes  of  captives  whom  he  had  brought 
with  him.  By  the  employment  of  this  forced  labor 
he  changed  the  face  of  Egypt,  completely  intersecting  it 
with  canals,  and  filling  it  with  public  buildings  of  un¬ 
paralleled  magnificence.  The  second  king  after  Sesos¬ 
tris  bore  a  Greek  name,  but  must  be  regarded  as  a 
very  apocryphal  personage — Proteus,  who  was  said  to 
have  entertained  at  his  court  no  less  famous  a  visitor 
than  Helen,  the  heroine  of  the  Trojan  war.  For  the 
Egyptian  priests  had  their  version,  too,  of  that  wondrous 
Tale.  According  to  them,  the  Spartan  princess  was 
driven  by  stress  of  weather  to  Egypt  on  her  forced 
elopement  with  Paris,  while  Troy  was  besieged  by  the 
Greeks,  in  the  belief  that  she  was  there.  King  Proteus, 
when  he  heard  the  story,  gave  Helen  refuge,  but  dis¬ 
missed  Paris  at  once  with  disgrace.  Herodotus  accuses 
Homer  of  knowing  this  legend,  which  was  a  more 
probable  version  of  the  story  than  his  own,  and  sup¬ 
pressing  it  for  poetical  purposes,  since  he  speaks  of  the 
long  wanderings  of  Helen,  and  of  Menelaus’s  vis*it  to 
Egypt.  The  priests  told  him  that  their  predecessors 
had  the  story  from  Menelaus  himself,  who  went  to 
Egypt  to  fetch  Helen,  when  he  found,  after  the  capture 
of  Troy,  that  she  Avas  not  there.  Herodotus  himself 
saw  in  the  sacred  precincts  at  Memphis  a  temple  to 
“  Venus  the  Foreigner,”  whom  his  Greek  patriotism  at 
once  identified  with  Helen. 


HERODOTUS . 


61 


A  story  told  at  considerable  length  by  Herodotus  of 
the  next  king,  Ehampsinitus,  is  highly  characteristic, 
showing  that  sympathy  of  the  Greek  mind  for  clever 
rascality  which  recalls  Homer’s  manifest  enjoyment  of 
the  wily  tricks  of  Ulysses  in  the  “  Odyssey.”  The  story 
of  “  The  Treasury  of  Ehampsinitus,”  which  lias  been 
borrowed  also  by  the  Italian  novelists,  reads  as  if  it 
were  taken  from  tlie  “Arabian  Nights.” 

King  Ehampsinitus,  having  vast  treasure  of  silver, 
built  for  its  safe  keeping  a  chamber  of  hewn  stone  one 
of  whose  walls  formed  also  the  outer  wall  of  his  palace. 
His  architect,  however,  having  designs  on  the  treasure, 
built  a  stone  into  the  wall,  which  even  one  man  who  knew 
the  secret  could  easily  displace.  He  did  not  live  long 
enough  to  carry  out  his  views,  but  on  his  deathbed  ex¬ 
plained  the  contrivance  to  his  two  sons,  for  whose  sake  he 
said  he  had  devised  it,  that  the;)  might  live  as  rich  men, 
since  the  secret  would  make  them  virtual  chancellors 
of  the  royal  exchequer  through  their  lives.  After  his 
death,  the  sons  profited  by  his  instructions  to  remove  a 
considerable  sum.  The  king,  when  next  lie  came  to 
visit  the  room,  missed  his  money,  finding  it  standing 
at  a  lower  level  in  the  vessels.  This  happened  again  and 
again,  though  the  seals  and  fastenings  of  the  room  were 
as  secure  as  ever.  At  last  he  set  a  man-trap  inside. 
When  the  thieves  next  made  their  usual  visit,  one  of 
them  found  himself  suddenly  caught.  Seeing  no  hope 
of  escape,  he  called  to  his  brother  to  come  and  cut  off 
his  head,  to  prevent  his  being  recognized.  The  brother 
obeyed;  and,  after  replacing  the  stone,  made  his  way 
home  with  the  head.  When  the  king  entered  at  day¬ 
break,  he  greatly  marveled  to  see  a  headless  trunk  in 
the  gin,  while  the  building  seemed  still  to  be  fast 
closed  all  round.  To  find  out  to  whom  the  body  bo- 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


52 


longed,  lie  ordered  it  to  be  lmng  outside  the  palace-wall, 
and  set  a  guard  to  watch,  and  bring  before  him  any 
persons  they  might  observe  lamenting  over  it.  The 
mother  of  the  dead  man,  hearing  of  this  desecration  of 
a  corpse  that  should  have  been  a  mummy,  told  her  sur¬ 
viving  son  that  unless  he  contrived  to  rescue  it,  she 
would  go  and  tell  the  king  that  he  was  the  robber. 
Wearied  with  her  continual  reproaches,  at  last  the 
brother  filled  some  skins  with  wine,  loaded  them  on 
asses,  and  drove  them  by  the  place  where  the  guards  were 
watching  the  dead  body.  Then  he  slily  untied  the  necks 
of  some  of  the  skins.  The  wine  of  course  began  to  run 
out,  upon  which  he  fell  to  wailing  and  beating  his  head, 
as  if  distracted,  and  not  knowing  to  which  donkey  he 
should  run  first  to  staunch  the  wine.  This  highly 
amused  the  guards,  wrho  ran  eagerly  to  catch  the  wine 
in  all  the  vessels  they  could  lay  hands  on.  Then  the 
driver  pretended  to  get  into  a  passion,  and  abused  them, 
upon  which  they  did  their  best  to  quiet  him.  At  last,  ap¬ 
pearing  to  be  put  in  good-lmmor  again  by  their  raillery, 
he  gave  them  one  of  the  skins  to  drink.  They  invited 
him  to  help  them  with  the  drinking,  as  they  had  helped 
him  in  putting  the  skins  in  order.  As  the  wine  went 
round  all  got  more  and  more  friendly,  till  they  broached 
another  skin,  and  at  last  the  guards  all  got  so  drunk  that 
they  went  to  sleep  on  the  spot.  In  the  dead  of  the  night 
the  thief  took  down  the  body  of  his  brother,  laid  it  upon 
the  asses,  and  made  off,  having  first  remained  long 
enough  to  shave  off  the  right  whiskers  of  each  of  the 
men, — which  was  considered  a  deadly  insult.  When 
the  king  heard  of  this  he  was  more  vexed  than  ever, 
and  determined  to  find  out  the  thief  at  any  cost.  He 
bade  his  daughter  keep  open  house  for  all  comers,  and 
promise  to  marry  the  man  who  would  tell  her  most  to 


HERODOTUS. 


53 


her  satisfaction  the  cleverest  and  wickedest  thing  he  had 
ever  done.  If  any  one  told  her  the  story  of  the  robbery, 
she  was  to  lay  hold  of  him.  But  the  thief  was  not  to  be 
thus  outwitted.  He  procured  a  dead  man’s  arm,  put  it 
under  his  dress,  and  went  to  call  on  the  princess.  When 
she  put  the  question,  he  answered  at  once  that  the 
wickedest  thing  he  had  ever  done  was  cutting  off  his 
brother’s  head  in  the  king’s  treasury,  and  the  cleverest 
was  making  the  guards  drunk,  and  carrying  off  his 
body.  The  princess  made  a  grasp  at  him,  but  in  the 
darkness  lie  left  the  arm  of  the  corpse  in  her  hand  and 
fled.  But  now  the  king  was  overwhelmed  with  astonish¬ 
ment  and  admiration  for  the  man’s  cleverness,  and  made 
a  proclamation  of  free  pardon  and  a  rich  reward,  if  the 
thief  would  declare  himself.  lie  boldly  came  forward, 
and  Rhampsinitus  gave  him  his  daughter  in  marriage. 
“  The  Egyptians,”  he  said,  “  are  the  wisest  of  men,  and 
thou  art  the  wisest  of  the  Egyptians.” 

Till  the  death  of  Rhampsinitus  Egypt  enjoyed  pros¬ 
perity.  Cheops,  who  succeeded  him,  and  who  built 
the  Great  Pyramid,  is  said  to  have  shut  up  all  the  tem¬ 
ples,  that  his  people  might  do  nothingbut  work  for  him; 
and  he  kept  a  hundred  thousand  laboring  at  a  time, 
wdio  wTere  relieved  every  three  months.  It  took  ten 
years  to  make  the  causeway  (of  which  traces  still  re¬ 
main)  for  the  conveyance  of  stones,  and  another  twenty 
to  build  the  Pyramid  itself.  The  next  kings,  Chephren 
and  Mycerinus  (Mencheres)  likewise  built  pyramids,  but 
on  a  smaller  scale.  The  memory  of  Cheops  and  Che¬ 
phren,  in  consequence  of  their  oppressions,  became  so 
odious  to  the  Egyptians  that  they  would  not  even  men¬ 
tion  their  names;  but  upon  Mycerinus,  though  he  was 
just  and  merciful,  there  fell  the  punishment  due  for 
their  sins.  First  he  lost  his  only  daughter,  and  then  an 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


oracle  told  him  that  he  had  but  six  years  to  live.  He 
expostulated  with  the  oracle,  saying  it  was  hard  that  he 
who  was  a  good  aud  righteous  king  should  die  early, 
while  his  father  aud  uncle,  who  were  so  impious,  lived 
long.  The  oracle  answered — “  For  that  very  reason 
thou  must  die,  for  Egypt  was  destined  to  suffer  ill  for 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  thou  liinderest  the 
doom  from  being  fulfilled.”  On  this  Myceriuus,  find¬ 
ing  it  useless  to  be  virtuous,  determined  to  outwit  the 
gods;  so  he  lighted  lamps  at  nightfall,  and  turned  all 
the  nights  into  days,  aud  enjoyed  them  as  well  as  the 
days,  in  feasting  in  all  pleasant  places.  Thus  he  lived 
twelve  years  in  the  space  of  six,  making  his  six  years 
one  long  day  of  continuous  revel.  The  story  of  Myceri- 
nus  has  been  very  happily  treated  in  one  of  Matthew 
Arnold’s  earliest  poems.* 

After  him  came  a  blind  king  named  Anysis,  during 
whose  reign  Egypt,  was  invaded  by  the  Ethiopians,  who 
lorded  it  over  tiie  country  for  fifty  years.  He  was  suc- 


*  Its  moral— if  it  has  any— may  be  found  in  Moore's  song — 

“  And  the  best  of  all  ways 
To  lengthen  our  daj’s 

Is  to  steal  a  few  hours  from  the  night,  my  dear.” 

“  I  will  unfold  my  sentence  and  my  crime  ; 

My  crime,  that,  rapt  in  reverential  awe, 

I  sate  obedient,  in  the  fiery  prime 
Of  youth,  self-governed,  at  the  feet  of  Law, 
Ennobling  this  dull  pomp,  the  life  of  kings, 

With  contemplation  of  diviner  things. 

“  My  father  loved  injustice,  and  lived  long; 

Crowned  with  gray  hairs,  he  died,  and  full  of  sway. 

I  loved  the  good  he  scorned,  and  hated  wrong; 

The  gods  declare  my  recompense  to-day. 

I  looked  for  life  more  lasting,  rule  more  high— 

And  when  six  years  are  measured,  io,  I  die!” 


HERODOTUS. 


55 


ceeded  bySethos,  a  priest  of  Vulcan,  who  oppressed  the 
warrior  caste,  so  lliat  they  refused  to  serve  him  when 
Sennacherib,  king  of  the  Assyrians,  invaded  the  coun¬ 
try.  But  a  vision  in  the  sanctuary  bade  him  be  of  good 
cheer;  and  when  he  went  out  to  the  frontier  with  an 
army  of  citizens,  trusting  in  divine  aid,  a  number  of 
field-mice  came  in  the  night  and  gnawed  the  bow¬ 
strings,  quivers,  and  shield  straps  of  the  enemy,  so  that 
the  Egyptians  easily  defeated  them.  Such  is  the  dim 
tradition  which  reached  the  historian  of  the  mysteri¬ 
ous  destruction  of  the  Assyrian  host  recorded  in  the 
Scriptures.  The  mouse,  according  to  some  interpreters 
of  hieroglyphic  language,  was  the  symbol  of  destruc¬ 
tion.  Thus  far  Herodotus  had  derived  his  information 
as  to  early  Egyptian  history  entirely  from  the  priests. 
He  computed  that  the  reigns  of  these  kings,  as  given 
him,  would  require  eleven  thousand  three  hundred  and 
forty  years. 

A  revolution  seemed  to  have  occurred  after  the  death 
of  Setlios,  by  which  twelve  provincial  kings,  like  those 
of  the  Saxon  Heptarchy,  reigned  at  once.  Their  great 
work  was  a  labyrinth  near  Lake  Moeris,  which  struck 
Herodotus  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world — more 
wonderful  even  than  the  Pyramids  themselves.  One 
of  the  twelve,  Psammeticlius,  at  length  managed  to 
depose  the  rest  by  the  aid  of  Greek  mercenaries.  II is 
son,  Nechos  (Pharaoh  Necho),  is  credited  by  iferodotus 
with  the  first  attempt  to  construct  the  canal  to  the  Red 
Sea,  which  was  afterwards  finished  by  Darius  Hystaspcs. 
The  canal,  however,  was  more  probably  begun  by  Se- 
sostris  (Rameses  II.),  and  there  appears  to  be  evidence 
that  it  was  choked  by  sand  (which  is  still  the  difficulty 
with  modern  engineers),  and  reopened  many  times — by 
the  Ptolemies,  for  instance,  and  the  Arabs,  -  Neche  is 


56 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


mentioned  in  Scripture  as  having  defeated  and  slain 
King  Josiali  at  Megiddo  on  his  way  to  attack  the 
Assyrians.  Herodotus  briefly  notices  the  victory,  but 
calls  the  place  Magdolus,  after  which  he  says  that 
Neclio  took  the  city  of  Cadytis,  supposed  to  be  either 
Jerusalem  or  Gaza.  In  a  subsequent  expedition,  which 
Herodotus  does  not  mention,  he  himself  was  defeated 
by  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  and  lost  all  his 
conquests.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Psammis, 
and  his  grandson  Apries  (the  Pharaoh- Hoplira  of  Jere¬ 
miah).  The  latter  had  a  long  and  prosperous  reign; 
but  failing  in  an  attack  on  the  Greek  city  of  Cyrene, 
his  army  revolted  from  him,  and  chose  Amasis,  an 
oflicer  who  had  been  sent  to  reason  with  them,  for 
their  king.  Apries  on  this  armed  his  Greek  merce¬ 
naries,  amounting  to  thirty  thousand  men,  and  went  to 
meet  the  revolted  Egyptians.  In  the  battle  which  en¬ 
sued  he  was  defeated  and  taken  prisoner  by  Amasis, 
who  finally  gave  him  up  to  his  former  subjects,  with 
whom  he  was  unpopular,  and  they  strangled  him. 
Amasis  was  a  coarse  but  humorous  character,  rather 
proud  than  otherwise  of  his  low  origin.  Finding  that 
his  subjects  despised  him  for  it,  he  broke  up  a  golden 
foot-path,  and  made  of  it  an  image  of  one  of  the  gods, 
which  the  Egyptians  proceeded  to  worship.  He  then 
told  them  what  it  was  made  of,  adding  that  “his  own 
fortune  had* been  that  of  the  foot-pan;”  thus  anticipat¬ 
ing  the  adage  of  Burns — 

“  The  rank  is  but  the  guinea-stamp, 

The  man’s  the  gowd  for  a’  that.” 

When  his  courtiers  reproved  his  undignified  revels  in 
his  hours  of  relaxation,  whereas  none  could  complain 
of  his  inattention  to  business,  he  met  them  with  tho 


HERODOTUS. 


57 


proverb,  now  common  to  most  languages,  that  a  bow 
becomes  useless  if  not  sometimes  unstrung.  His  habits 
were  certainly  open  to  remark.  To  find  money  for  his 
pleasures  before  he  came  to  the  throne,  he  occasionally 
took  to  highway  robbery.  The  macular  shrines  were 
the  police  offices  of  those  times,  and  Amasis,  like  other 
thieves,  was  cited  in  such  cases  before  the  nearest 
oracle.  Some  of  them  would  acquit,  others  find  him 
guilt}r.  When  he  became  king,  he  honored  the  oracles 
which  had  detected  him  very  highly,  but  the  others  he 
despised.  But  he  was  a  great  king,  in  spite  of  his  fail¬ 
ings;  and  Egypt  is  said  to  have  prospered  more  under 
him  than  under  any  of  his  predecessors.  One  of 
his  laws  was,  that  every  man  should  appear  once  a 
year  before  the  governor  of  his  department,  and  prove, 
on  pain  of  death,  Unit  he  was  getting  an  honest  liveli¬ 
hood.  Herodotus  says  that  Solon  borrowed  this  law 
from  the  Egyptians,  and  that  it  was  in  force  at  Athens 
up  to  his  own  days.  If  this  be  true,  it  fell  into  disuse 
soon  after  his  time,  as  the  Athenians  enjoyed  a  reputa¬ 
tion  above  all  nations  in  the  world  for  “gracefully 
going  idle.”  We  may  at  least  join  in  his  remark,  that 
this  ordinance  of  Amasis  was  “a  most  excellent  cus¬ 
tom,”  towards  which  our  modern  civilization  is  making 
timid  approaches.  We  shall  hear  of  this  king  again  in 
connection  with  Polycrates,  the  despot  of  Samos. 

The  account  which  Herodotus  here  gives  of  the  kings 
of  Egypt,  however  interesting  and  entertaining,  must 
be  read  with  the  full  understanding  that  its  value  in 
a  historical  point  of  view  is  about  the  same  as  that  of 
Livy’s  popular  account  of  the  early  kings  of  Rome. 
He  was  unacquainted  with  the  Egyptian  language,  and 
though  the  priests  may  not  have  purposely  imposed 
upon  him,  he  had  to  depend  on  the  anecdotes  which 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


came  to  him  through  the  medium  of  the  caste  of  drago¬ 
mans  who  were  settled  at  Memphis.  In  consequence 
of  this,  the  consecutiveuess  and  general  symmetry  of 
his  account  only  serve  to  conceal  some  palpable  mis¬ 
statements.  Perhaps  the  greatest  is  that  which  makes 
the  builders  of  the  Pyramids  later  in  time  than  the 
builders  of  the  temples  and  other  monuments.  Modern 
investigations  have  tended  to  give  great  weight  to  the 
authority  of  a  native  chronicler,  spoken  of  with  much 
respect  by  early  Christian  writers,  but  who  afterwards 
fell  into  disrepute — Manetlio,  the  high-priest  in  the 
days  of  Ptolemy  Philadelplius.  Ilis  record  is  utterly 
fatal  to  the  main  facts  of  the  account  given  by  He¬ 
rodotus.  After  dynasties  of  gods  and  heroes  which 
reigned  more  than  sixteen  thousand  years,  lie  brings 
us  to  the  builders  of  the  Pyramids,  whom  Herodotus 
places  at  a  late  period  of  his  history,  perhaps  because 
his  Greek  informants  first  became  acquainted  with  the 
monuments  at  Memphis  itself.  He  was  probably  fur¬ 
nished  with  two  distinct  lists  of  kings,  both  to  a  great 
extent  mythical,  which  he  took  to  be  separate  and 
successive  dynasties.  Cheops  is  almost  certainly  iden¬ 
tical  with  Menes,  the  first  human  king  of  Herodotus,  in 
whose  time  was  effected  the  canalization  of  the  Delta. 
He  is  the  traditional  builder  of  the  Great  Pyramid,  and 
Chemmis  (the  Sun)  appears  as  one  of  his  titles,  at  once 
connecting  him  with  the  sun-worship.  The  Pyramids 
are  supposed  to  have  been  built  before  the  time  of 
Abraham,  with  the  Pharaoh  of  whose  times  Achtlioes 
of  the  lltli  dynasty  has  been  identified.  The  name 
Pharaoh  itself  continues  the  title  assumed  by  Cheops, 
in  its  meaning  of  “  children  of  the  sun.” 

The  Mycerinus  of  Herodotus  is  found  to  resolve  him¬ 
self  into  two  kings,  the  Menckeres  who  built  the  Pyra- 


HERODOTUS. 


69 


mids,  and  another  much  later  king,  of  whom  the  story 
of  turning  night  into  day  is  told;  a  legend  which  may 
have  originated  in  the  torcli-light  festival  of  Osiris  and 
Isis.  Sesostris  also  resolves  himself  into  two  kings — 
Sethos,  the  great  engineer  and  builder,  and  Rameses  II., 
the  great  conqueror  whose  victories  are  recorded  in  the 
temples  at  Karnak  and  Luxor,  and  whose  falle-fi  statue  at 
Luxor  is  the  largest  in  the  world.  After  him  came  Me- 
nephthes  or  Amenonoph,  who  has  been  identified  with  the 
Pharaoh  of  Exodus.  The  Shishak  of  Scripture  has  been 
confounded  with  Sesostris,  but  he  came  far  too  late,  and 
is  nowr  identified  with  one  Sesorchis.  But  the  identi- 
fication  of  any  of  these  kings  is  as  yet  very  uncertain. 

Among  other  -stories  in  the  second  book  of  Herod¬ 
otus  is  one  not  quite  presentable  to  the  general  reader, 
about  a  Greek  beauty  of  doubtful  repute,  named  Rliodb- 
pis  (“  Rosy-cheek”),  who  had  been  brought  as  a  slave 
to  Eg}rpt,  and  who  was  said  to  have  built  one  of  the 
Pyramids.  Strabo  embellishes  her  history  by  telling 
how,  when  this  lady  was  bathing,  an  eagle  carried  oil 
one  of  her  sandals,  and  deposited  it  before  the  king  of 
Egypt’s  throne,  who  was  so  struck  by  the  suggested 
beauty  of  the  foot  which  it  fitted  that  he  sent  for  her 
and  made  her  his  queen.  Such  is  the  venerable  antiq¬ 
uity  of  the  story  of  Cinderella. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Herodotus  says  nothing  about 
the  Great  Sphinx,  which  strikes  all  modern  travelers  so 
forcibly,  and  which  plays  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  le¬ 
gends  of  the  Greek  Thebes.  He  must  have  seen  it,  but 
may  have  thought  it  (as  he  did  other  things  in  this  mys¬ 
terious  country)  “  too  sacred  to  mention.”  Its  composite 
form  is  supposed  to  be  emblematic  of  Nature,  and  con¬ 
nected  in  some  way  with  the  inundations  of  the  Nile. 

This  second  book  of  Herodotus  brings  the  history  of 


60 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Egypt  as  an  independent  power  to  a  close.  It  is  an  in¬ 
exhaustibly  rich  mine  of  historical,  archaeological,  and 
mythological  wealth,  on  whose  endless  shafts  and  gal¬ 
leries  modern  discovery  is  ever  throwing  some  new  light. 
Formerly  the  deciphering  of  the  hieroglyphic  writing,  in 
which  all  Egyptian  sacred  records  were  kept,  was  looked 
upon  as  all  but  hopeless,  but  since  the  key  was  supplied 
by  the  discovery  of  the  famous  Rosetta  stone,  which  bore 
a  Greek  translation  of  its  hieroglyphic  inscription,  scien¬ 
tific  patience  has  been  abundantly  rewarded.  Religion 
is  essentially  conservative,  and  older  dialects  and  char¬ 
acters  are  continued  in  her  service  long  after  they  have 
been  superseded  in  secular  use.  We  may  cite  as  an 
example  the  Church  Slavotiic  dialect-  of  the  north,  so 
valuable  to  philologists;  the  Sanskrit  of  India;  the  Latin 
still  in  use  in  the  Roman  Catholic  ritual.  Even  in  Eng¬ 
land  we  still  use  archaic  characters  for  the  inscriptions 
in  our  churches,  but  this  is  no  doubt  partly  because  of 
their  greater  picturesqueness. 


CHAPTER  1Y. 
camtTysf.s. 

“  The  race  of  mortal  Man  is  far  too  weak 
To  grow  not  dizzy  on  unwonted  heights.” 

—Goethe,  “  Iphigenia.” 

As  soon  after  the  death  of  Cyrus  as  the  Persian  arms 
were  at  liberty,  we  find  them  directed  against  Egypt. 
The  former  alliance  of  that  country  with  Lydia  might 
seem  an  adequate  cause  for  the  invasion,  but  it  is  too 
prosaic  for  the  taste  of  Herodotus.  He  makes  Cam- 
byses,  the  son  of  Cyrus,  march  against  Amasis  because 


HERODOTUS . 


61 


lie  had  practiced  on  him  a  deceit  something  like  that  of 
Laban  towards  Jacob,  by  sending  him  as  a  wife  the 
daughter  of  the  late  king,  Apries,  instead  of  his  own. 
Cambyses  was,  at  all  events,  no  safe  subject  for  a  prac¬ 
tical  joke,  and  Amasis  might  have  found  to  his  cost  that 
he  had  jested  once  too  often. 

Having  purchased  a  safe-conduct  through  the  desert 
by  swearings  brotherhood  with  the  chief  of  the  Arabs,* 
— by  a  process  much  the  same  as  that  described  by 
modern  African  travelers,  which  consisted  in  the  con¬ 
tracting  parties  mixing  a  little  of  their  blood, f — Cam¬ 
byses  set  out  for  Egypt.  But  death  had  put  Amasis 
beyond  the  reach  of  all  enemies,  and  his  son  Psammen- 
itus  now  reigned  in  his  stead.  Dire  misfortunes  had 
been  portended  to  the  country  by  the  unusual  phenom¬ 
enon  of  a  shower  of  rain  at  Thebes.  After  an  obsti¬ 
nate  battle,  Psammenitus  was  utterly  routed.  Herodo¬ 
tus  went  afterwards  over  the  field,  and  saw  there  the 
bones  of  the  Persians  lying  in  one  heap,  and  those  of 
the  Egyptians  in  another.  He  remarked  that  the  skulls 


*“The  safe-conduct  granted  by  the  chief  of  the  Bedouins,” 
says  Kinglake,  “  is  never,  I  believe,  violated.” 

t  “  Several  of  our  men  made  brotherhood  with  the  Wezees,  and 
the  process  between  Bombay  and  the  sultan’s  son  Keerenga, 
may  be  mentioned.  My  consent  having  been  given,  a  mat  is 
spread,  and  a  confidential  party  or  surgeon  attends  on  each.  All 
four  squat,  as  if  to  have  a  game  at  whist;  before  them  are  two 
clean  leaves,  a  little  grease,  and  a  spear-head;  a  cut  is  made 
under  the  ribs  of  the  left  side  of  each  party,  a  drop  of  .  blood  put 
on  a  leaf  and  exchanged  by  the  surgeons,  who  rub  it  with  butter 
twice  into  the  wound  with  the  leaf,  which  is  now  torn  in  pieces 
and  strewn  over  the  “  brothers’  ”  heads.  A  solemn  address  is 
made  by  the  older  of  the  attendants,  and  they  conclude  the  cere¬ 
mony  by  rubbing  their  own  sides  with  butter,  shaking  hands,  and 
wishing  each  other  success.”— Grant’s  “  Walk  through  Africa,” 

p.  108. 


62 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


of  the  former  might  be  broken  by  a  pebble,  while  those 
of  the  latter  resisted  even  a  large  stone.  This  observa¬ 
tion  he  afterwards  verified  by  personal  inspection  of 
another  battle-field,  where  a  Persian  force  was  subse- 
quently  defeated  by  the  revolted  Egyptians  under 
Inaros.  He  attributes  the  difference  1o  the  Egyptians 
going  bareheaded  in  the  sun,  while  the  Persians  wore 
turbans.  The  Persians  followed  up  thei^  victory  by 
the  capture  of  the  city  of  Memphis  and  of  Psammen- 
itus  himself,  on  which  occasion  our  author  introduces 
one  of  his  characteristic  pathetic  stories.  Cambyses 
•wishing,  says  Herodotus,  “  to  try  the  spirit”  of  his  royal 
prisoner,  ordered  Psammenitus  and  some  of  the  captive 
nobles  to  be  brought  out  to  the  gates  of  the  city.  Then 
he  caused  the  deposed  king’s  daughter,  and  those  of  the 
nobles,  to  be  led  past  in  the  dress  of  slaves,  carrying 
pitchers  on  their  heads.  The  nobles  wept  at  the  sight, 
but  Psammenitus  only  bowed  his  head.  Next  fob 
lowed  his  son  and  two  thousand  other  young  Egyp¬ 
tians,  going  to  execution  with  ropes  round  their  necks. 
The  people  of  Memphis  had  torn  limb  from  limb  the 
crew  of  a  ship  which  Cambyses  had  sent  -with  a 
summons  to  surrender,  and  this  was  his  reprisal — ten 
for  every  man  murdered.  The  nobles  again  wept  and 
wailed  loudly,  but  Psammenitus  comported  himself  as 
before.  But  when  he  saw  one  of  his  former  boon  com¬ 
panions,  an  old  man  now  reduced  to  beggary,  asking 
alms  from  the  soldiers,  then  his  grief  broke  forth  in 
tear^j,  and  he  beat  himself  on  the  head.  Cambyses  was 
amazed  that  he  should  weep  at  the  fate  of  his  friend, 
and  not  at  that  of  his  daughter  or  son,  and  sent  to  ask 
him  the  reason  of  his  strange  conduct.  Psammenitus 
answered,  “O  son  of  Cyrus,  mine  own  misfortunes 
were  too  great  for  tears.”  Cambyses  was  sufficiently 


HERODOTUS. 


68 


touched  to  order  the  life  of  the  young  prince  to  he 
spared,  but  the  reprieve  came  too  late.  But  from  that 
time  Psammenitus  was  treated  better,  and  might,  as 
Herodotus  thinks,  had  he  shown  more  tact,  have  been, 
appointed  governor  of  Egypt,  since  it  was  the  Persian 
custom  thus  to  honor  fallen  princes,  even  giving  the 
kingdoms  of  rebel  vassals  to  their  sons.*  But  he  was 
unwise  enough  to  plot  rebellion,  and  Cambyses,  discov¬ 
ering  this,  put  him  to  death. 

And  now  the  son  of  Cyrus  entered  on  that  career  of 
impiety  which  was  certain  to  have  an  evil  end.  He 
had  the  body  of  his  enemy  Amasis,  who  had  escaped 
his  vengeance  while  living,  torn  from  its  tomb,  scourged, 
and  committed  to  the  flames — an  act  horrible  to  the 
P^-sians,  who  worshiped  fire;  horrible  to  the  Egyp¬ 
tians,  who  looked  upon  that  element  as  a  devouring 
monster  to  whom  it  was  impious  to  give  tlieir  dead. 
Then,  according  to  Greek  poetical  justice,  he  was 
seized  by  infatuation.  He  planned  wild  expeditions — 
one  against  “the  Long-lived”  Ethiopians,  who  dwelt 
far  away  to  the  south,  and  who  might  perhaps  be  iden¬ 
tified  with  the  modern  Abyssinians  (Heeren  thinks,  with 
the  Somalis)  by  certain  characteristics,  such  as  tall 
stature,  regular  though  black  features,  and  a  great  love 
of  animal  food.  Whoever  they  were,  they  are  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  one  of  our  author’s  most  characteristic  narra¬ 
tives.  Cambyses  sent  envoys  to  them — men  of  the 
tribe  of  “  Fish-eaters,”  who  knew  their  language — with 
presents  for  their  king:  a  purple  robe,  a  collar  and  arm- 


*  We  have  notable  instances  of  this  habit  in  Eastern  monarchs 
recorded  in  Scripture.  Jehoiakim  is  made,  king  instead  of  his 
brother  Jehoaliaz,  by  Pharaoh-Nechoh  (2  Kings  xxiii.  34  ;  Mat- 
taniah  instead  of  his  nephew  Jehoiachin,  by  Nebuchadnezzar 
(2  Kings  xxiv.  IV). 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


lots  of  gold,  and  a  cask  of  palm  wine,  tokens  of  his 
goodwill,  as  “the  things  in  which  he  himself  most  de¬ 
lighted.”  The  Ethiopian  king — who  was  elected  for 
his  stature  and  beauty — made  answer  almost  in  the 
words  of  Joseph  to  liis  brethren:  “Surely  to  search  out 
the  land  are  ye  come  hither.”  He  asked  how  the  pur¬ 
ple  robe  was  made;  and  when  they  explained  the  mys¬ 
tery  of  the  dye,  he  said  that  the  Persians’  garments, 
like  themselves,  were  deceitful.  When  told  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  the  golden  collar  and  armlets,  he  chose  to  con¬ 
sider  them  as  fetters,  and  remarked  that  “the  Ethio¬ 
pians  made  them  stronger.”  In  fact,  as  Herodotus 
declares,  the  envoys  saw  men  afterwards  in  prison 
actually  wearing  fetters  of  a  metal  which  Avas  there  so 
plentiful.  Only  the  wine  he  highly  approved  off  and 
asked  what  the  king  of  Persia  ate,  and  how  long  men 
lived  in  that  country.  When  he  heard  that  corn  was 
the  staple  food,  and  that  it  grew  out  of  the  earth,  and 
that  eighty  years  was  considered  a  long  life,  he  replied 
that  he  did  not  wonder  at  the  king’s  dying  so  young  if 
he  “ate  dirt,”  and  that  nothing,  he  was  persuaded, 
could  keep  him  alive  even  so  long,  except  that  excellent 
liquor.  He  sent  back  in  return  an  unstrung  bow,  with 
advice  that,  when  the  Persians  could  find  a  man  to 
bend  it,  they  should  then  think  of  attacking  the  “Long- 
livers.  ” 

Against  this  distant  tribe,  however,  the  Persian  king 
set  out  with  a  vast  army,  without  bestowing  a  thought 
on  his  commissariat.  Before  he  had  accomplished  a 
fifth  of  the  distance  the  provisions  failed,  but  he  still 
pushed  on.  The  army  fed  on  the  sumpter-beasts  till 
they  were  exhausted;  then  on  herbs  and  grass,  till  they 
came  to  the  sandy  desert,  where  vegetation  ended.  At 
last,  when  he  heard  of  cannibalism  in  the  ranks  Cam- 


HERODOTUS. 


65 


byses  thought  it  was  time  to  return;  but  he  succeeded 
in  bringing  back  only  a  small  remnant  of  his  host. 
Another  expedition,  sent  against  the  temple  of  Ammon, 
in  the  Great  Oasis,  fared  even  worse,  for  no  news  came 
of  it  more.  It  perished,  our  author  thinks,  in  a  sand¬ 
storm — more  probably  from  want  of  water.  But  Cam- 
byses’  heart  was  hardened.  When  he  returned  from 
his  ill-starred  march,  he  found  the  Egyptians  holding- 
high  festival.  This  greatly  incensed  him,  for  he 
thought  they  were  rejoicing  at  his  defeat.  But  they 
were  innocently  celebrating  the  incarnation  of  their 
national  god  Apis  or  Epaphus,  who  was  said  to  appear 
from  time  to  time  in  the  similitude  “of  a  calf  that 
eateth  hay,”  and  whose  “avatar”  in  that  form  was 
denoted  by  certain  sacred  marks  known  to  his  priests. 
Cam  byses  was  still  more  angry  when  he  heard  the  real 
cause  of  this  national  jubilee:  he  had  the  priests 
scourged  all  round,  forbade  the  people  to  rejoice  on 
pain  of  death,  and,  to  crown  all,  fell  on  the  sacred 
beast  and  wounded  him  with  his  dagger,  so  that  he 
pined  away  and  died.  From  this  precise  date,  as  the 
Egyptians  averred,  the  madness  of  Cambyses  took  a* 
more  decided  character.  But  his  acts,  however  unac¬ 
countable  to  a  Greek  mind,  seem  to  have  been  little 
more  than  those  of  an  Eastern  despot  of  fierce  passions 
and  naturally  cruel  disposition.  First  he  had  his 
brother  Smerdis  put  to  death,  and  then  he  killed  his 
sister  because  she  mourned  for  Smerdis.  He  had  sent 
this  brother  back  to  Persia  because  he  excited  his  jeal¬ 
ousy  by  being  the  only  Persian  who  could  just  move  the 
Ethiopian’s  bow;  and  then,  having  dreamed  that  he  saw 
Smerdis  sitting  on  his  throne  and  touching  heaven  with 
Ids  head,  he  sent  a  nobleman  named  Prexaspes  to  Susa, 
who  slew  him  according  to  his  instructions.  The 
story  of  the  murder  of  the  sister  was  differently  told 


66 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY, \ 


by  the  Persians  and  Egyptians.  The  former  said 
that  Cambyses,  in  the  presence  of  liis  sister,  had  set  a 
puppy  to  tight  a  lion-cub.  The  dog  was  getting  the 
worst  of  it,  when  another  of  the  same  litter  broke  the 
cord  that  tied  him,  and  came  “  to  help  his  brother,” 
and  both  of  them  together  mastered  the  young  lion. 
Cambyses  was  amused,  but  his  sister  wept,  and  said  that 
she  could  not  but  think  of  Smerdis,  who  had  no  brother 
to  help  him.  For  this  speech  he  killed  her.  The  Egyp¬ 
tians  said  that  the  pair  were  seated  at  table,  when  the 
sister  took  a  lettuce,  and,  stripping  its  leaves  off,  asked 
Cambyses  whether  it  looked  better  with  its  leaves  off  or 
on?  He  answered,  “  With  its  leaves  on.”  “Then  why,” 
said  she,  “  didst  thou  strip  of  its  leaves  the  stem  of 
Cyrus?”  A  furious  kick  which  followed  this  remark 
was  the  cause  of  her  death.  In  fact,  Cambyses  had 
row  become  dangerous  to  all  about  him.  Croesus,  whom 
he  had  brought  with  him  to  Egypt,  had  more  than  one 
narrow  escape.  On  one  occasion  officers  were  sent 
to  put  him  to  death,  but  they,  knowing  their  master’s 
moods,  only  pretended  to  have  done  it,  and  produced 
*Croesus  alive' as  soon  as  Cambyses  was  heard  to  regret 
the  order.  He  was  well  pleased  that  his  friend  had  not 
been  killed,  but  the  disobedience  cost  the  guards  their 
lives.  Another  time  he  shot  the  son  of  Prexaspes 
through  the  heart  to  prove  the  steadiness  of  his  hand, 
merely  because  the  father  had  told  him  in  answer  to  a 
question,  that  the  Persians  said  he  was  rather  too  fond 
of  wine.  Probably  for  some  similar  offensive  remark  he 
buried  up  to  their  necks  twelve  of  his  nobles — a  cruel 
process  still  practiced  in  the  East  under  the  name  of 
4  4  tree-planting.”*  And  he  grew  more  and  more  profane. 

*  44  Feti-Ali-Shah  once  sent  for  Astra-chan,  one  of  liis  cour¬ 
tiers,  and  with  an  appearance  of  great  friendship  took  him  round 
his  garden,  showing  him  all  its  beauties.  When  he  had  finished 


HERODOTUS. 


67 


He  opened  tombs  and  unrolled  mummies  like  a  modern 
virtuoso.  He  made  sport  of  tlie  pigmy  images  of  Pthah, 
or  Vulcan,  whose  ludicrous  ugliness  must  have  presented 
the  grim  humorist  with  an  irresistible  temptation,*  and 
other  sacred  idols  he  burnt.  Herodotus  expresses  him¬ 
self  much  shocked  at  all  this;  but  he  might  have 
known  that  the  Persians  were  in  general  iconoclasts. 
It  is  possible  that  Cambyses  was  inspired  with  the 
same  destructive  zeal  which  induced  the  more  modern 
Puritans  to  clear  away  the  saints  from  the  niches  of 
our  cathedrals.  But  as  a  Greek  our  author  would 
sympathize  with  the  Egyptians.  It  is  hard  for  us  to 
judge  how  far  some  of  the  cruelties  reported  of  Cam¬ 
byses  may  have  been  the  invention  of  the  outraged 
priests.  He  has  recorded,  in  another  part  of  his  work, 
an  anecdote  which  illustrates  at  once  the  character  of 
Cambyses  and  the  general  incorruptibility  of  the  royal 
judges  of  Persia.  One  of  these,  named  Sisamnes,  was 
found  to  have  accepted  bribes.  Cambyses,  with  the 
facetious  cruelty  so  common  to  tyrants  of  his  type, 
had  him  flayed,  and  his  skin  stretched  over  the  seat 
which  he  had  occupied  while  administering  the  law. 
He  then  appointed  his  son  to  the  vacant  post,  charging 
him  at  the  same  time  never  to  forget  “  on  what  kind 
of  cushion  he  was  sitting.” 

The  modern  reader  will  agree  with  Herodotus  that 
it  is  at  least  right  to  treat  with  delicacy  the  peculiar 

the  circuit,  lie  appealed  to  Astra-chan  to  know  ‘  what  his  garden 
still  lacked?’  ‘Nothing,’  said  the  courtier;  ‘it  is  quite 
perfect.’  ‘I  think  differently,’  replied  the  king;  ‘I  must 
decidedly  plant  a  tree  in  it.’  Astra-chan,  who  knew  the  king’s 
meaning  only  too  well,  fell  at  his  feet  and  begged  his  life,  which 
he  obtained  only  at  the  price  of  surrendering  to  the  king  the 
lady  to  whom  he  was  betrothed.”— Rawlinson,  ii.  331,  note. 

*  See  the  woodcuts  and  note,  Rawlinson,  ii  434. 


68 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


usages  of  others.  Aristotle  quotes  one  of  his  anecdotes 
to  illustrate  the  opinion  of  those  who  held  that  all 
right  and  wrong  were  conventional.  King  Darius 
Hystaspes  called  certain  Greeks  into  his  presence, 
and  asked  them  what  they  would  take  to  eat  their 
dead  fathers?  They  said  that  they  would  do  it  for 
no  consideration  whatever.  Then  he  asked  a  certain 
tribe  of  Indians  what  they  would  take  not  to  eat  the 
bodies  of  their  fathers,  but  to  burn  them  like  the 
Greeks?  They  cried  aloud,  and  begged  him  not  to 
blaspheme.  So  Sir  John  Lubbock,  in  his  “Prehistoric 
Times,”  relates  that  the  Tahitians  think  it  indecent 
to  dine  in  company;  and  that  as  soon  as  a  child  is 
born  he  is  accounted  the  head  of  his  family,  and  takes 
precedence  of  his  father.  And  the  tyranny  of  public 
opinion  in  matters  indifferent,  of  which  we  complain 
so  often,  finds  its  strongest  exemplification  among  the 
semi-brutal  savages  of  Australia. 

The  death  of  Smerdis  had  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
but  few  persons  in  Persia,  and  while  Camhyses  was 
absent  in  Egypt,  the  priest-caste  of  the  Magi  made  a 
bold  attempt  at  a  revolution.  It  is  probable  that 
under  Cyrus  and  Cambyses  this  caste,  with  their 
peculiar  tenets,  had  been  discouraged.  A  certain 
Magian,  who  was  a  kind  of  groom  of  the  palace, 
had  a  brother  who  resembled  greatly  the  dead  Smer- 
dis,  and  who  (according  to  Herodotus)  bore  the  same 
name.*  Patizethes  seated  his  brother  on  the  throne, 
and  sent  out  a  proclamation  that  henceforth  all  men 
were  to  do  homage  to  Smerdis  the  son  of  Cyrus,  and 

*  The  Behistun  inscription  gives  the  name  as  Gomates,  and 
does  not  speak  of  two  brothers.  Mr.  Rawlinson  seems  to  prove 
clearly  that  the  revolution  was  a  religious  one,  tho  ugh  nothing 
to  that  effect  appears  in  Herodotus.— See  his  Essay,  iii.  548. 


HERODOTUS. 


& 


m 

no  longer  to  Cambyses.  When  Cambyses  heard  of 
this,  he  thought  that  Prexaspes  had  not  done  his 
errand,  and  that  it  was  really  his  brother  Smerdis  who 
had  revolted  against  him;  but  Prexaspes  satisfied  him 
that  his  orders  hacj  been  duly  executed,  and  that  this 
was  a  usurper  personating  the  dead  prince.  I*Ie  was 
at  once  struck  by  remorse,  seeing  that  his  fratricide 
had  been  useless,  for  his  dream  was  so  far  fulfilled 

that  a  man  called  Smerdis  sat  on  his  throne;  and  lie 

. ,  '  -  *•  .m  * 

prepared  to  march  at  once  iu  person  to  Susa  to  cjuell 
the  rebellion.  As  he  was  mounting  his  horse,  the 
knob  of  his  sword-sheath  fell  off,  and  the  bare  point 
of  the  weapon  pierced  his  thigh,  exactly  as  he  had 
pierced  with  his  dagger  the  god  Apis.  His  wound 
brought  him  to  his  senses,  and  he  solemnly  conjured 
the  Persian  nobles  to  prevent  the  empire  from  pass-  ' 
ing  to  the  Medes,  confessing  that  he  had  killed  his 
brother  Smerdis,  and  that  therefore  the  present  occu¬ 
pant  of  the  throne  must  be  an  impostor.  The  wound¬ 
ed  limb  soon  mortified,  and  Cambyses  died  in  Egypt, 
leaving  no  issue.  Before  his  death  he  asked  the  name 
of  the  village  where  he  lay.  He  was  answered  that 
it  was  called  “Ecbatana.”  Then  he  knew  that  he 
should  die;  for  an  oracle  had  long  ago  predicted  that 
he  should  die  at  Ecbatana — which  he  naturally  took 
to  be  his  own  town  in  Media.  The  coincidence  with 
the  death  of  our  own  Henry  IV.  in  the  “Jerusalem 
chamber”  is  very  curious. 

“  It  hath  been  prophesied  to  me  many  years 
I  should  not  die  but  in  Jerusalem, 

Which  vainly  I  supposed  the  Holy  Land; 

But  bear  me  to  that  chamber;  there  I’ll  lie, — 

In  that  Jerusalem  shall  Harry  die.”  * 


*  “  Henry  IV.,”  Part  2,  Act  iv.  sc.  4. 


* 


TI1E  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY, 


70 


CHAPTER  Y. 

DARIUS. 

“  In  the  theater  of  the  World 
The  people  are  actors  all. 

One  doth  the  sovereign  monarch  play, 

And  him  the  rest  obey.”— Calderon. 

The  jealous  hatred  which  Cambyses  bore  to  his 
brother  Smerdis  was  so  well  known,  that  the  Persians 
did  not  believe  his  dying  declaration  that  the  person 
who  had  seized  his  throne  was  an  impostor.  They  ac¬ 
cepted  him  as  the  true  Smerdis,  son  of  Cyrus.  Such 
impostures  are  possible  enough  in  a  credulous  age.  A 
false  Demetrius  plays  an  important  part  in  the  history 
of  Russia.  There  were  many  who  disbelieved  the  fact 
of  the  two  English  princes  having  been  smothered  in 
the  Tower;  and  many  more,  at  quite  a  recent  date,  have 
believed  that  Louis  XVII.  escaped  his  jailers,  and  grew 
up  to  manhood.  The  secluded  life  of  an  Eastern  mon¬ 
arch  would  give  such  an  imposture  additional  chances 
of  success. 

The  Magian  usurper  reigned  for  eight  months  under 
the  name  of  Smerdis,  giving  great  satisfaction  to  most 
of  his  subjects,  for  under  him  “  the  empire  was  peace.’’ 
He  remitted  the  heaviest  taxes,  and  enforced  no  mili¬ 
tary  conscription.  At  last  his  imposture  came  to  light. 
Otanes,  a  Persian  nobleman,  whose  daughter  was  one 
of  his  wives,  was  informed  by  her  that  her  husband 
had  no  ears.  Now  the  Magian  was  known  to  have  lost 
his  for  some  offence  in  the  time  of  Cyrus*  The  result 


*  This  is  the  mildest  form  of  mutilation,  as  the  feature  seems 
more  ornamental  than  useful,  except  to  those  savage  tribes  iu 


HERODOTUS. 


71 


of  this  revelation  was,  that  Otanes  headed  the  famous 
conspiracy  of  the  seven  nobles,  of  whom  Darius,  the 
son  of  Hystaspes,  sprung  from  a  collateral  branch  of 
the  royal  family,  and  probably  the  next  legal  heir,  was 
one.  While  they  were  concocting  their  plan  of  attack, 
a  tragical  event,  happened  which  made  immediate  action 
necessary.  The  Magians,  knowing  how  cruelly  Prex- 
aspes  had  been  treated  by  Cambyses,*  thought  it  their 
interest  to  conciliate  him,  and  prevailed  upon  him  to 
mount  on  a  tower  of  the  palace-wall,  and  make  a  speech 
to  the  people  below,  who  had  grown  suspicious,  to  the 
effect  that  their  present  king  was  the  true  Smerdis,  the 
son  of  Cyrus.  But  in  this  they  made  as  fatal  a  mistake 
as  Shakespeare’s  Brutus  and  Cassius  did  when  they  al- 
lowed  Mark  Antony  to  speak  at  Caesar’s  funeral.  Prex- 
aspes,  instead  of  lying  to  please  the  Magians,  proclaimed 
aloud  the  real  state  of  the  case,  and  then  threw  himself 
from  the  tower,  and  was  killed  on  the  spot. 

The  seven  conspirators  gained  the  presence  of  the 
false  king  and  his  brother  with  no  great  difficulty,  but 
within  they  met  with  such  resistance  that  two  were 
badly  wounded  before  they  succeeded  in  dispatching 
them.  The  others  cut  off  the  Magians’  heads,  carried 
them  forth,  and  showed  them  to  the  populace.  A  gen¬ 
eral  massacre  of  the  Magian  caste  followed,  which 
lasted  till  the  night.  Few  of  them  survived  this  St. 

whom  the  muscle  that  moves  the  ear  is  developed.  It  was  prac¬ 
ticed  in  England  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century,  for  such  of¬ 
fences  as  Nonconformity,  Petty  Treason,  Libel,  and  the  like. 
Prynne  is  a  Avell-known  instance.  It  is  common  now  in  Africa, 
and  is  said  to  give  the  head  the  look  of  a  barber’s  block,  but  to 
be  attended  with  no  great  inconvenience.  The  false  Smerdis, 
as  has  been  said,  never  went  abroad,  and  probably  wore  his  tur¬ 
ban  low  on  his  head. 

*  See  p.  66. 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


7S 

Bartholomew  of  Susa.  During  the  annual  festival  held 
henceforth  under  the  name  of  Magoplionia,  which  we 
might  call  the  “Median  Vespers,”  none  of  the  hated 
class  dared  be  seen  abroad,  though  tolerated  at  other 
times. 

The  seven  noblemen,  according  to  Herodotus,  now 
resolved  themselves  into  a  debating  society,  for  the 
purpose  of  discussing  different  forms  of  government. 
That  is  to  say,  he  here  avails  himself  of  an  author’s  fa¬ 
vorite  license  to*propouud  theories  of  his  own.  His 
sympathies  are  plainly  with  democracy,  but  historical 
exigencies  obliged  him  to  admit  that  monarchy  was 
adopted.  They  agreed  that  one  of  the  seven  should  be 
king,  and  the  rest  his  peers,  having  free  access  to  the 
royal  presence  on  all  but  certain  stated  occasions.  It 
was  then  arranged  that  all  should  ride  their  horses  to 
an  open  place  at  sunrise,  and  choose  as  king  the  man 
whose  horse  was  the  first  to  neigh.  This  was  really  an 
appeal  to  ilie  sun,  to  whom  the  horse  was  sacred.  The 
omen  fell  to  Darius,  by  the  cunning  management  of  his 
equerry,  and  he  was  at  once  hailed  as  king.  When  he 
was  established  in  the  kingdom  he  is  said  to  have  set 
up  the  figure  of  a  man  on  horseback,  with  a  commem¬ 
orative  inscription.  The  story  may  have  been  in¬ 
vented  subsequently,  to  account  for  this  work  of  art,  as 
often  happens. 

Most  valuable  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  history 
of  Darius  by  the  discovery  of  the  great  Behistun  in¬ 
scription.  On  the  "western  frontier  of.  the  ancient 
Media  there  is  a  precipitous  rock  1700  feet  high, 
which  forms  a  portion  of  the  Zagros  chain,  sepa¬ 
rating  the  table-land  of  Iran  from  the  valley  of  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates.  The  inscription  can  only  be 
reached  with  difficulty,  as  it  is  300  feet  from  the 


HERODOTUS. 


73 

base  of  tk-e  rock.  It  is  in  three  languages,  old 
Persian,  Babylonian,  and  Scythian,  executed,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Sir  H.  Rawlinson,  in  the  fifth  year  of  Darius, 
b.c.  516.  The  wedge-shaped  letters  of  the  Persian 
copy  were  deciphered  with  infinite  pains  by  this  great 
archaeologist.  Darius  mentions  in  it,  under  the  name 
of  Gaumata,  a  Magian  who  personated  Bardes  *  (as  he 
calls  him),  the  son  of  Cyrus,  and  says  that  he  slew  him 
by  the  help  of  Ormuzd,  the  Good  Spirit,  and  thus 
recovered  an  empire  that  belonged  to  his  own  family, 
restoring  to  the  Persians  the  religion  which  they  had 
lost  by  the  Magian  intrusion.  He  also  records  that 
after  this  lie  was  engaged  in  quelling  a  general  revolt 
of  the  provinces.  The  main  facts  accord  with  those 
of  Herodotus,  though  there  is  some  difference  in  the  no¬ 
menclature.  The  end  of  the  inscription  invokes  a  curse 
on  any  one  who  might  injure  it,  and  this  has  probably 
tended  to  preserve  it  ;  just  as  the  curse  on  Shakespeare’s 
monument,  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  may  have  conduced 
to  prevent  officious  veneration  from  “moving  his 
bones.” 

Darius  was  the  first  monarch  of  Persia  who  regulated 
the  revenues,  and  assigned  the  sum  that  each  satrapy 
ought  to  pay  to  the  royal  treasury.  This  caused  the 
haughty  Persian  aristocracy  to  say  of  him,  in  their  con¬ 
tempt  for  red  tape,  that  Cyrus  had  been  a  father  to  the 
state,  Cambyses  a  master,  but  Darius  was  “a  huckster, 
who  would  make  a  gain  of  everythin 

o  ,j  o 

There  can  be  no  question  that  Herodotus  had  access, 


*  The  s,  whether  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  Persian  names, 
is  commonly  only  a  Greek  addition.  So  Bardy  (a)— the  vowel 
being  pronounced  though  not  written— is  Smerdis,  Gaumat  (a) 
becomes  Gomates,  Vashtasp  (a)  Hystaspes,  etc.— See  Rawlinpon, 
I.  27-29,  note. 


74 


TITE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


either  personally  or  through  friends,  to  the  royal  records 
of  Persia,  or  copies  of  them.  He  gives  a  complete  list 
of  the  various  satrapies  into  which  the  empire  was 
divided,  of  the  several  subject  nations  which  it  com¬ 
prised,  and  the  form  and  amount  of  their  tribute.  The 
Persians  themselves,  it  must  be  remarked,  like  the 
Magyar  grandees  in  Hungary  formerly,  were  exempt 
from  taxation,  and  only  bound  to  military  service.  He 
says  that  the  Indians,  the  most  numerous  race  of  all, 
paid  into  the  royal  treasury  three  hundred  and  sixty 
talents  in  gold  dust,  and  that  the  whole  annual  revenue 
was  computed  at  fourteen  thousand  five  hundred  and 
sixty  talents,  besides  a  fraction — more  than  three  mil¬ 
lions  and  a  half  of  our  money.  But  it  must  be  con¬ 
sidered  that  this  corresponds  to  the  modern  Civil  List, 
serving  only  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  Court 
These  Indians  must  not  be  supposed  to  be  those  of  the 
Peninsula,  but  rather  those  of  Scinde  and  the  Punjab. 
The  gold  which  they  brought  into  the  royal  treasury 
was  said  to  come  from  a  great  desert  to  the  eastward. 
In  this  desert  there  were  ants — “  bigger  than  foxes’' — 
and  in  their  hills  the  gold  was  found.  To  procure  it 
the  gold-hunters  took  camels,  chiefly  females  with 
young  ones,  with  which  they  proceeded  to  the  place  at 
the  hottest  time  of  day,  when  the  ants  were  in  their 
holes,  filled  their  bags  with  the  auriferous  sand,  and 
then  hurried  back  to  escape  the  pursuit  of  the  ants;  the 
female  camels  leading  the  way,  as  anxious  to  get  back 
to  their  young  ones.  The  existence  of  these  gigantic 
ants  has  been  asserted  by  comparatively  modern  travel¬ 
ers,  but  it  seems  probable  that  they  must  have  been 
really  ant-eaters,  which  burrowed  in  the  hills,  and 
which  some  informants  of  Herodotus  may  have  seen. 

Among  the  barbarian  tribes  in  dependence  on  Per 


HERODOTUS. 


75 


sia,  he  mentions  one  called  the  Padseans,  who,  like  the 
Massagetae  before  mentioned,  allowed  none  of  their  sick 
to  die  a  natural  death.  The  horrible  story  is  quaintly 
told.  “  If  a  man  is  taken  ill,  the  men  put  him  to  death 
to  prevent  his  flesh  being  spoiled  by  his  malady.  -  He 
protests  loudly  that  he  never  felt  better  in  his  life;  but 
they  kill  and  eat  him  notwithstanding.  So  if  a  wo¬ 
man  is  ill,  the  women  who  are  her  friends  do  to  her  in 
like  manner.  (The  decent  division  of  the  sexes  is  worth 
remarking.)  If  any  one  reaches  old  age — a  very  un¬ 
common  occurrence,  for  he  can  only  do  so  on  condition 
of  never  having  been  ill — they  sacrifice  him  to  the  gods, 
and  afterwards  eat  him.”  Marco  Polo,  the  Venetian 
traveler,  writing  about  1500,  found  the  practice  exist¬ 
ing  in  Sumatra,  where  the  relations  assembled  in  the 
sick  man’s  house,  suffocated  him,  and  then  ate  him,  as 
lie  describes  it,  “in  a  convivial  manner.”  Among 
other  wTonders  he  mentions  Arabian  sheep  (the  fore¬ 
fathers,  no  doubt,  of  our  “Cape”  breed)  which  had 
tails  three  cubits  long,  for  which  the  shepherds  made 
little  trucks  to  keep  them  off  the  ground — “  each  sheep 
having  a  truck  of  his  own.”  The  mention  of  remark¬ 
able  countries  and  productions  leads  Herodotus  to  ob¬ 
serve  that,  while  the  Greeks  have  the  finest  climate,  as 
inhabiting  the  middle  of  the  earth,  yet  the  farthest  in¬ 
habited  regions  have  the  finest  productions — tin,  amber, 
and  gold  coming,  for  instance,  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth ;  but  in  respect  of  horses  he  gives  the  palm  to  the 
Nisrean  breed  of  Media.  Palgrave,  in  his  “Travels  in 
Arabia,”  speaks  of  the  horses  of  Ned j id  as  the  “  cream 
of  the  cream”  of  equine  aristocracy. 

Soon  after  the  accession  of  Darius,  one  of  his  seven 
fellow-conspirators,  Intapliernes,  got  into  trouble.  He 
insisted  on  seeing  the  king  during  his  hours  of  privacy, 


70 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


and  being  denied,  cut  off  the  noses  and  ears  of  two  of 
the  palace  officials,  and  hung  them  round  their  necks. 
This  displeased  the  king  so  much  that  he  condemned 
Intaphernes  and  all  the  males  of  his  family  to  death. 
Cut  Darius  was  touched  with  pity  bj7-  the  lamentations 
of  the  wife  of  Intaphernes,  and  allowed  her  to  choose 
which  of  her  family  she  would  save.  She  chose  her 
brother — explaining,  when  the  king  showed  some  as¬ 
tonishment  at  her  selection,  that  such  a  loss  could  not 
possibly  be  replaced,  her  father  and  mother  being  dead. 
Pleased  with  her  wit,  Darius  gave  her  the  life  of  her 
eldest  son  into  the  bargain.  Sophocles  adopts  the  same 
curious  sentiment  in  his  tragedy  of  Antigone.  The 
general  justice  of  Darius  would  lead  to  the  suspicion 
that  the  crime  of  Intaphernes  was  of  the  nature  of  high 
treason,  otherwise  his  family  would  hardly  have  been 
involved  in  his  punishment. 

The  story  of  Democedes,  a  famous  surgeon  of  Cro- 
tona,  who  was  brought  to  Persia  as  a  slave,  is  intro¬ 
duced  by  Herodotus  to  find  a  motive  for  the  attention 
of  the  king  being  called  to  Greece.  He  had  abundant 
reasons  besides,  as  the  history  shows;  but  our  author 
will  not  desert  the  theory  of  his  choice,  that  Woman  is 
the  mainspring  in  all  human  affairs.  Democedes  had 
got  into  favor  at  court  by  successful  treatment  first  of 
Darius  himself,  then  of  Atossa  the  favorite  sultana. 
For  this  latter  service  he  obtained  leave  to  name  his 
own  reward — it  was,  to  be  allowed  to  visit  his  home; 
and,  as  Darius  wished  also  to  conquer  Greece,  in  order 
that  Atossa’s  desire  of  having  some  of  “those  Lacedae¬ 
monian  handmaidens  of  whom  she  had  heard  so  much” 
might  be  gratified,  Democedes  was  sent  to  make  the 
tour  of  Greece  and  its  colonies  on  the  Italian  coast  with 
a  party  of  spies.  When  he  reached  his  native  Crotona, 


HERODOTUS. 


77 


he  chose  to  remain  there,  and  was  assisted  by  his  fellow- 
townsmen  against  the  Persians,  who  tried  to  take  him 
back  with  them.  He  bade  the  latter  tell  Darius  that  he 
was  about  to  be  married  to  the  daughter,  of  Milo  the 
wrestler;  wishing  the  king  to  know  that  he  was  a  man 
of  some  mark  in  his  own  country,  where — as  in  some 
cases  among  us  moderns — athletics  ranked  even  higher 
than  science.  These  spies  were  said  to  have  been  the 
first  Persians  who  visited  Greece. 

But  Darius  had  no  time  to  think  of  Greece  just  then, 
as  his  hands  were  full  with  a  revolt  in  Babylonia  and 
other  provinces,  which  appears  to  have  assumed  larger 
proportions  than  those  known  to  Herodotus.  Samos 
was  the  first  state  which  was  unfortunate  enough  to 
draw  upon  itself  the  might  of  the  Persian  arms.  The 
cause  of  this  war  was  a  cloak.  When  Cambyses  was  in 
Egypt  with  his  army,  one  Syloson,  brother  of  Poly¬ 
crates  of  Samos,  was  also  there  in  exile.  He  appeared 
one  day  at  Memphis  in  a  scarlet  cloak,  to  which  Darius, 
who  was  then  a  plain  officer  of  the  royal  guards,  took  a 
fancy,  and  asked  the  wearer  to  name  his  price.  Sjr- 
loson,  in  a  fit  of  generosity,  begged  him  to  accept  it  as 
a  present;  and  it  had  no  sooner  been  accepted  than  he 
repented  of  his  good-nature.  As  matters  turned  out, 
the  cloak  of  Syloson  became  as  famous  as  that  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh.  Raleigh  “  spoiled  a  cloak  and  made  a 
fortune,”  by  spreading  out  his  for  Queen  Elizabeth  to 
walk  on;  Syloson,  by  giving  his  away,  led  the  way  to 
the  ruin  of  his  country.  For  when  Darius  came  to  the 
throne,  Syloson  introduced  himself  at  court  as  the  hero 
of  the  cloak,  and  Darius  asked  him  what  he  could  do 
for  him  in  return.  He  requested  to  be  put  in  posses¬ 
sion  of  his  late  brother's  dominion  in  Samos.  Maeau- 
drius,  the  secretary  of  Poly  crates,  who  was  at  present  in 


78 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


possession,  was  a  man  who  had  had  greatness  thrust . 
upon  him.  When  Polycrates  was  murdered,  the  secre¬ 
tary  found  himself  in  possession  of  Samos;  and  wishing 
to  be  “  the  justest  of  men,”  set  up  an  altar  to  the 
god  of  Freedom,  stipulating  only  that  he  should  be  ap¬ 
pointed  its  liigli-priest  as  a  condition  of  his  establishing 
democracy.  Finding,  however,  that  the  “Irreconcil- 
ables”  of  the  period  intended  to  prosecute  him  for 
embezzlement,  he  had  repented  of  his  republican  gen¬ 
erosity,  and  made  himself  master  of  the  citadel  and 
city.  Darius  now  sent  out  an  expedition  which  put  his 
friend  Syloson  in  possession  of  the  island,  but  not  with¬ 
out  an  insurrection,  which  led  to  a  terrible  massacre  of 
the  people. 

Babylon,  according  to  the  Behistun  inscription,  re¬ 
volted  from  Darius  twice — once  in  the  first  and  again 
in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign.  It  is  difficult  to  iden¬ 
tify  with  either  of  these  occasions  the  revolt  now  men¬ 
tioned  by  Herodotus.  According  to  his  account — 
which  in  this  instance  must  be  regarded  rather  as 
romance  than  history — so  determined  was  the  attempt, 
that  the  Babylonians  strangled  most  of  their  women,  in 
order  to  reduce  their  population,  in  preparation  for  the 
expected  siege.  Darius  soon  sat  down  before  the  city, 
but  the  walls  defied  his  utmost  power;  and  the  besieged 
began  to  jeer  the  Persians,  telling  them  that  “they 
would  never  take  the  city  until  mules  foaled.”  How¬ 
ever,  in  the  twentieth  month  of  the  siege,  a  mule 
belonging  to  Zopyrus,  a  Persian  of  rank,  did  foal 
— an  event  perhaps  not  physically  impossible;  and 
Zopyrus  thought  that  there  must  have  been  some¬ 
thing  providential  in  the  taunt  of  the  Babylonians,  . 
and  that  now  the  city  might  be  taken.  The  sequel, 
whether  true  or  not  in  an  historical  sense,  is  singu- 


HEROD  or  US. 


79 


larly  illustrative  of  the  chivalrous  self-devotion  of 
the  Persian  nobility  in  the  interests  of  their  mon¬ 
arch.  Zopyrus  proceeded  to  cut  off  his  own  nose  and 
ears,  clipped  his  hair  close,  got  himself  scourged,  and 
in  that  state  presented  himself  to  Darius,  and  laid  his 
plan  before  him.*  Darius  was  greatly  shocked  at  his 
retainer’s  maltreatment  of  himself,  but  as  it  was  too 
late  to  mend  the  matter,  made  the  proposed  arrange¬ 
ment.  Zopyrus  was  to  pretend  to  desert  to  the  Baby¬ 
lonians,  telling  them  that  Darius  had  so  ill  used  him, 
because  he  had  advised  him  to  raise  the  siege.  The 
Babylonians  would  probably  believe  him,  and  intrust 
him  with  the’  command  of  a  division.  Darius  must 
then  be  willing  to  sacrifice  a  few  thousands  of  his 
worst  soldiers  to  give  the  Babylonians  confidence  in 
Zopyrus,  who,  when  he  had  the  game  safe  in  his  hands, 
would  open  the  gates  to  the  Persian  army.  All  turned 
out  according  to  the  programme.  Zopyrus  admitted 
the  Persians,  who  took  the  city.  Darius  did  his  best 
to  destroy  the  formidable  walls,  and  had  three  thousand 
of  the  leading  rebels  impaled;  but,  not  wishing  to 
depopulate  the  city,  procured  from  the  neighboring- 
nations  fifty  thousand  women  to  make  up  for  those 
whom  the  Babylonians  had  sacrificed.  As  for  Zopyrus, 
the  king  loaded  him  with  honors  and  made  him  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Babylon;  but  he  was  wont  to  say — more 
scrupulous  than  Henry  IV.  of  France,  who  changed 
his  religion  to  procure  the  surrender  of  the  capital, 
thinking  Paris  “well  worth  a  mass,” — that  he  would 
rather  have  Zopyrus  unmutilated  than  be  master  of 
twenty  Babylons. 


*  The  town  of  Gabii,  according  to  Livy,  was  taken  by  the 
Romans  by  a  very  similar  stratagem. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


CHAPTER  VL> 

SCYTHIA. 

“  They  dwell 
In  wattled  sheds  on  rolling  cars  aloft, 

Accoutered  with  far-striking  archery.” 

— TBschvi.tjs,  “Prometheus.” 

Haying  disposed  of  Babylon,  Darius  next  bethought 
himself  of  the  Scythians.  He  had  an  old  national 
grudge  against  this  restless  race,  for  having  overrun 
Asia.in  the  days  of  Cyaxares  the  Mede.  'The  Behistun 
inscription  only  mentions  the  quelling  of  a  revolt  of 
the  Sacse,  or  Scythian  subjects  of  Persia;  but  Herod¬ 
otus  speaks  of  an  expedition  on  a  vast  scale  against 
the  independent  nation. 

The  Scythians  were,  according  to  Herodotus,  a  peo¬ 
ple  whose  scat  was  in  the  steppes  of  northern  Russia, 
more  widely  spread  than  the  present  Cossacks  of  the 
Don,  but  without  any  definite  boundaries,  sometimes 
encroaching  on  their  neighbors  and  sometimes  en¬ 
croached  upon  by  them,  like  the  Tartar  hordes  at 
tnis  day.  Their  name  has  been  supposed  by  some 
to  be  a  synonym  for  “archers.”  Their  habits  were 
very  like  those  of  the  terrible  Huns  and  Magyars 
who  overran  part  of  Europe  in  the  last  agonies  of 
Rome  and  afterwards;  but  the  difficulty  of  identifying 
a  modern  and  civilized  race  with  an  ancient  and  bar¬ 
barous  one,  is  shown  by  the  dissimilarity  of  the  hand¬ 
some  and  chivalrous  Hungarians  with  their  hideous 
and  unkempt  progenitors.  They  seem  to  have  inherited 
from  them  little  besides  their  love  of  horseflesh — in  the 
civilized  sense. 


HERODOTUS. 


81 


That  tlic  Scythians  disappeared  fiom  history,  'when 
history  itself  was  at  its  lowest  ebb,  is  no  proof  that 
they  exist  nowdiere  now.  Their  language,  specimens 
of  which  are  given  by  Herodotus,  undoubted^'  belongs 
to  that  of  the  Indo  Germanic  family.  Their  connection 
with  the  Sacse  is  established.  Some  connect  the  Sacee 
with  the  Saxons,  others  also  with  the  Sikhs  of  northern 
India.  It  would  indeed  be  strange  if  it  were  discovered 
from  critical  philology  and  archaeology  that  the  English 
were  pitted  against  their  cousins  at  Sobraon,  Chilian- 
wallah,  and  Gujerat,  and  recovered  India  through  their 
aid  afterwards;  and  that  some  of  our  Saxon  ancestors 
wmre'those  who  fought  best  on  the  losing  side  at  Mara- 
thon  and  Platsea.  Certain  it  is  that  nearly  all  the  now 
dominant  races  of  mankind  seem  to  have  swarmed,  at 
longer  orshorter  intervals,  from  some  mysterious  hive 
about  or  beyond  the  Caucasus,  Histoiy  records  some 
of  the  waves  of  their  western  or  eastern  progress.  Be¬ 
fore  the  Scvthians  came  a  swarm  of  Cimmerians, 
sweeping  over  Asia  Minor  in  the  lime  of  the  predeces¬ 
sors  of  Croesus.  Their  name  is  still  retained  in  the 
Crimea  and  Krim  Tartary.  They  reappear  as  Cimbri 
in  the  latter  days  of  the  Roman  republic,  to  which  they 
were  very  near  giving  the  finishing  stroke.  Then  they 
gre  heard  of  in  Schleswick,  and  Jutland,  and  in 
Wales  it  is  just  possible  that  at  the  present  day  they 
call  themselves  Cymry.  Before  their  coming  a  horde  of 
Celts  or  Gauls  had  fallen  on  Rome,  and  another  invaded 
Greece  later  on,  leaving  permanent  settlements  in  Lom¬ 
bardy  and  Asia  Minor. 

In  earlier  history  these  tidal  waves  of  population 
came  at  long  intervals,  so  that  the  damage  they  did  vTa3 
reparable,  and  the  silt  they  left  behind  them  only 
strengthened  the  ground;  but  in  the  latter  days  of  the 


82  • 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Roman  Cmsars,  they  succeeded  one  another  so  quickly 
that  the  Empire  was  swamped,  and  when  the  disturb¬ 
ance  had  subsided,  the  earth  wore  a  face  that  was 
strange  and  new.  The  repentant  sons  of  those  savage 
children  of  the  night,  calling  themselves  English, 
French,  Germans,  and  so  forth,  are  now  endeavoring 
to  atone  for  their  fathers’  delinquencies  by  painfully 
diving  after  the  relics  of  lost  civilizations,  and  preserv¬ 
ing  whatever  they  can  find  with  religious  veneration 
for  the  use  and  delight  of  ages  to  come.  By  degrees 
we  are  opening  up  Greece,  Italy,  Assyria,  Persia,  India, 
Egypt,  and  discovering  to  our  dismay  that  much  of  our 
boasted  civilization  is  but  a  parody  on  what  prevailed 
centuries  or  millenniums  ago;  and  that,  with  all  our 
culture,  we  have  still  much  barbarism  to  unlearn. 

The  Scythians  described  by  Herodotus,  like  the 
Parthians  who  defeated  the  Roman  legions,  are  a  race 
of  archers  on  horseback.  From  them  the  Greeks  may 
have  derived  their  fables  of  the  Centaurs.  As  a  pas¬ 
toral  people,  they  were  generally  averse  to  the  tillage 
of  land,  and  moved  about  with  their  herds  from  one 
feeding-ground  to  another,  carrying  their  skin-covered 
huts  on  carts.  That  the  Sarmatians  were  allied  with 
them  appears  from  the  fable  which  traces  their  descent 
to  the  union  of  Scythians  with  Amazons,  those  wonder¬ 
ful  viragoes  whose  manlike  habits  are  still  kept  up  by 
the  women  of  some  Tartar  tribes. 

To  account  for  the  origin  of  the  Scythians,  Herodo¬ 
tus  gives  two  fables.  According  to  one,  a  certain  Tar. 
gitaus,  a  son  of  Jupiter,  and  grandson  by  his  mother’s 
side,  of  the  river  Borysthenes  or  Dnieper,  was  the  first 
man  in  Scythia.  He  had  three  sons.  At  first  they  were 
all  equal,  when  there  fell  from  heaven  four  implements 
of  gold — a  plow,  a  yoke,  a  battle-axe,  and  a  goblet. 


HERODOTUS . 


83 


The  eldest  approached  to  take  them,  when  they  broke 
out  into41ames,  and  he  durst  not  touch  them.  The  second 
was  rejected  in  like  manner.  The  youngest  fared  bet¬ 
ter;  he  was  able  to  handle  the  gold  and  to*  carry  it 
off.  This  was  a  sign  that  he  should  be  the  king.*  From 
the  three  brothers  sprang  the  three  Scythian  tribes — the 
“  Royal”  Scythians  from  the  youngest.  According  to 
the  other  legend,  which  emanated  from  a  Greek  source, 


*  A  somewhat  similar  story  was  told  to  Speke  by  Rumanika, 
king  of  Karague. 

“  Before  their  old  father  Dagara  died,  he  had  unwittingly  said 
to  the  mother  of  Rogero,  although  he  was  the  youngest  born, 
‘what  a  fine  king  he  would  make;’  and  the  mother  in  conse¬ 
quence  tutored  him  to  expect  to  succeed,  although  primogeniture 
is  the  law  of  the  land,  subject  to  the  proviso,  Avhich  was  also  th8 
rule  with  the  ancient  Persians,  that  the  heir  must  have  been  born 
after  his  father’s  accession,  which  condition  was  here  fulfilled  in 
the  case  of  all  three  brothers.  .  .  .  Rumanika  maintained 
that  Rogero  w’as  entirely  in  the  wrong,  not  only  because  the  law 
was  against  him,  but  the  judgment  of  heaven  also.  On  the  death 
of  the  father,  the  three  sons,  who  only  could  pretend  to  the 
crown,  had  a  small  mystic  drum  placed  before  them  by  the 
officers  of  state.  It  was  only  feather-weight  in  reality,  but  being 
loaded  with  charms,  became  too  heavy  for  those  not  entitled  to 
the  crown  to  move.  Neither  of  the  other  brothers  could  move  it 
an  inch,  while  Rumanika  easily  lifted  it  with  his  little  finger. 
.  .  .  He  (Rumanika)  moreover  said  that  a  new  test  had  been 

invented  in  his  case  besides  the  ordeal  of  lifting  the  drum.  The 
supposed  rightful  heir  had  to  plant  himself  on  a  certain  spot, 
when  the  land  on  which  he  stood  would  rise  up  like  a  telescope 
drawn  out  till  it  reached  the  skies.  If  he  was  entitled  to  the 
throne,  it  would  then  let  him  down  again  without  harm;  but  if 
otherwise,  collapse  and  dash  him  to  pieces.  Of  course  as  he  sur¬ 
vived  the  trial,  it  was  successful.  On  another  occasion  a  piece 
of  iron  was  found  in  the  ground,  about  the  shape  and  size  of  a 
carrot.  This  iron  could  not  be  extracted  by  any  one  but  Ruma¬ 
nika  himself,  who  pulled  it  up  with  the  greatest  ease.” — “Lake 
Victoria;”  acompilation  from  the  Memoirs  of  Captains  Speke  and 
Grant,  v 


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Hercules,  when  he  was  carrying  off  the  cattle  of  Geryon 
(who  lived  on  an  island  near  Cadiz  in  Spairf),  came 
to  Scythia,  and  being  overcome  by  frost  and  fatigue, 
wrapped liimself  in  his  lion’s  skin,  and  fell  asleep.  When 
he  awoke  his  team  of  mares  had  disappeared.  He  wan¬ 
dered  in  quest  of  them  till  he  came  to  a  country  called 
the  Bush.  Here  he  found  in  a  cave  a  strange  being, 
half  woman,  half  serpent,  who  detained  him  with  her 
by  holding  out  hopes  of  his  recovering  his  mares,  which 
she  had  caught  and  hidden. *  Three  sons  were  the  re* 


*  These  legends  of  serpent-women  are  not  uncommon  in  Ger¬ 
man  mythology.  The  following  adventure  is  related  by  the 
brothers  Grimm;  “  One  Leonhard,  who  was  a  stammerer,  but  a 
good  fellow,  and  of  irreproachable  morals,  lost  his  way  one  day 
as  he  was  visiting  some  underground  vaults  of  the  nature  of 
catacombs.  All  at  once  he  found  himself  in  a  delicious  meadow, 
ju  the  midst  of  which  was  playing  a  young  girl,  half  concealed 
by  the  herbage.  She  invited  him  to  come  and  rest  by  her  side. 
Leonhard,  out  of  pure  politeness,  obeyed  her  eagerly,  and  then 
became  aware  of  a  fact  which  the  long  grass  had  at  first  pre¬ 
vented  his  observing, — that  the  damsel,  the  upper  part  of  whose 
body  was  white  and  beautiful,  terminated  below  in  a  scaly  and 
serpent-like  tail.  He  wished  to  fly,  but  his  legs  were  immediately 
caught  and  embraced  by  her  tail.  Thus  forced  to  listen,  he  now 
heal'd  the  poor  creature’s  history,  She  was  born  a  princess,  and 
was  enjoying  court  society,  when  a  malicious  enchanter  charmed 
her  into  her  present  state,  from  which  she  could  only  be  re¬ 
leased  on  one  condition,  and  that  was,  that  she  could  prevail  on 
some  fair  young  man,  who  must  be  perfectly  innocent,  to  give 
her  three  kisses.  The  youth  must  not  be  older  than  twenty-two. 
There  was  time  for  Leonhard  to  have  fulfilled  the  conditions,  for 
he  would  be  twenty-three  on  that  very  day— -in  two  hours  more. 
But,  unfortunately,  he  stammered,  and  the  two  hours  were  almost 
gone  before  he  had  made  the  necessary  preliminary  statement  as 
to  his  birth.  Then  he  gave  her  the  first  kiss.  Upon  that  she  was 
seized  with  violent  convulsions,  and  rolled  so  wildly  on  the  grass 
that  he  fled  in  alarm.  He  was,  however,  recalled  by  her  suppli¬ 
cations  and  promises,  and  gave  her  the  second  kiss.  The  effect 


HERODOTUS. 


85 


suit  of  tliis  strange  intimacy — one  called  Agatliyrsus, 
the  other  Gelonus,  the  other  Scythes.  Hercules,  on  his 
departure,  left  with  the  mother  a  bow,  and  a  belt  with 
a  goblet  attached  to  it.  The  son  who  could  bend  the 
bow  was  to  inherit  the  land,  the  others  to  emigrate. 
Scythes,  the  youngest,  bent  the  bow,  and  remained  to 
be  the  father  of  the  kings  of  Scythia,  which  accounted 
for  the  Scythian  custom  of  wearing  a  goblet  attached  to 
the  girdle. 

In  describing  the  geography  of  Scythia,  of  which 
Herodotus  probably  knew  no  more  than  he  may  have 
heard  at  the  Greek  factory  at  Olbia  (near  the  site  of  the 
modern  Kinburn),  he  is  carried  away  by  the  interest  of 
his  subject,  and  launches  out  into  a  geographical  digres¬ 
sion,  chiefly  entertaining  as  a  record  of  ancient  notions, 
and  as  showing  how  facts  become  altered  in  passing 
from  mouth  to  mouth.  The  “  Scythia”  of  Herodotus 
seems  to  embrace  “the  basins  of  the  Don,  Dnieper, 
D  niester,  and  Boug,  and  the  northern  half  of  that  of  the 
Lower  Danube”  *• — i.e.,  a  great  portion  of  Russia,  Bes¬ 
sarabia,  Wallachia,  and  Moldavia.  He  tells  strange  stories 
of  the  tribes  who  dwelt  around  Scythia,  as  far  as  the 
uttermost  parts  of  Europe.  The  Issedomans  and  the 


of  this  was  still  more  electric  than  that  of  the  first.  Her  eyes 
burned  like  fire,  she  sprang  up,  her  face  glowed  and  her  cheeks 
seemed  bursting;  she  whirled  about  like  a  demoniac,  and  hissed, 
shrieked,  and  yelled  like  a  very  Melusina.  Frightened  out  of  his 
wits,  the  youth  rushed  away  through  the  meadow  and  catacombs 
till  the  hideous  object  was  out  of  sight;  but  after  a  time,  reflect¬ 
ing  that  he  might  have  made  his  fortune  and  married  a  princess, 
he  turned  to  go  back  once  more.  It  was  too  late;  for,  to  his  un¬ 
speakable  chagrin,  he  just  then  heard  a  village  clock  strike 
twelve,  which  made  him  twenty-three  years  of  age.— X.  R.  Sain- 
tine,  “  La  Mytliologie  du  Rhiiv’  (free  tx-anslation). 

.  *  Heeren. 


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TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Andropliagi  were  given  to  cannibalism;  the  former,  like 
the  Callatian  Indians,  feasting  on  tlieir  fathers,  and  keep¬ 
ing  their  skulls  set  in.  gold  as  heirlooms.  This  custom 
was,  however,  balanced  with  another,  which  would 
place  them,  as  some  might  think  now,  in  the  van  of  prog¬ 
ress — they  gave  women  equal  rights  with  men.  The 
Neuri  were  said  to  change  into  wolves  periodically;  a 
tradition  which  still  survives  in  the  “  wehr-wolf  ”  of  the 
Germans,  and  the  “  loup-garou”  of  the  French.  Liv¬ 
ingstone  relates  that  there  were  men  in  the  country 
above  the  Zambesi  who  were  supposed  to  become  lions 
for  a  term,  and  that  the  souls  of  great  captains  were 
thought  to  pass  into  the  king  of  beasts.  But  perhaps 
the  story  rose  out  of  the  fact  that  the  Neuri  wore  wolf¬ 
skins  in  winter.  There  were  people  in  the  extreme 
north  who  slept  six  months  in  the  year  (Herodotus’s 
informant  may  have  said  that  there  was  night  for  six 
months),  and  who  had  goat’s  feet — that  is,  they  may 
have  worn  moccasins.  These  may  have  suggested  the 
Batyrs  of  the  Greeks.  A  common  superstition  also 
placed  a  wonderfully  good  and  happy  people  belnud 
the  region  of  the  north  wind,  called  Hyperboreans. 
So  the  ‘‘blameless”  Ethiopians  were  supposed  to 
inhabit  the  extreme  south.  The  Greeks  believed  in 
goodness  when  a  very  long  way  from  home. 

Our  author  mentions  slightly,  and  with  some  dis¬ 
dain,  the  legend  (known  also  to  other  writers)  of  one  of 
these  Hyperboreans,  Abaris,  who  was  said  to  have  been 
even  a  greater  traveler  than  himself— who  “walked 
round  the  world  with  an  arrow,  without  once  eating.” 
But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  story,  it  seems  highly  probable  that  in  Abaris’s 
“arrow”  we  have  a  dim  tradition  of  the  magnetic 
needle.  Its  properties  were  certainly  known  to  the 


HERODOTUS. 


87 


Chinese  long  before  Herodotus’s  d^e,  and  some 
rumor  of  the  marvel  might  have  reached  Europe. 
The  story  tempts  Herodotus  into  speculative  cosmog¬ 
raphy.  He  is  dissatisfied  wid*  the  map  of  Hecatasus, 
who  divided  the  habitable  world  into  two  equal  por¬ 
tions,  Europe  and  A^a,  making,  it  like  a  medal,  with 
the  great  river  o£. £Tccan  for  a  rim;  not  that  he  himself 
at  all  suspect**  the  world  of  being  a  sphere,  like  some 
of  the  lat£f  ancients,  but  that  he  thought  the  distribu¬ 
tion  oi  the  continents  manifestly  unsound. 

If  Herodotus  had  been  in  the  habit  of  rejecting 
every  tale  that  he  did  not  believe,  like  some  later 
writers,  we  should  have  lost  the  valuable  passage 
which  seems  to  prove  that  Africa  was  circumnavigated 
twenty-one  centuries  before  the  time  of  Diaz  and  Vasco 
de  Gama.  Pharaoh  Neclio,  after  giving  up  the  Suez 
Canal  as  hopeless,  sent  a  fleet  of  Phoenician  ships  down 
the  Red  Sea,  ordering  them  to  return  to  Egypt  by  the 
pillars  of  Hercules — that  is,  by  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar. 
As  these  were  their  orders,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
the  route  was  already  known.  They  spent  three  years 
in  accomplishing  their  task,  as  they  had  to  sow  grain 
on  the  way,  and  wait  for  the  harvest.  Herodotus  pro¬ 
nounces  their  voyage  apocryphal,  because  they  reported 
they  had  the  sunrise  on  their  right  hand  as  the}'  sailed 
round  Libya,  but  which  proves  indeed  that  they  had 
doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Sataspes,  a  Persian, 
tried  to  sail  round  Africa  in  the  other  direction,  but 
failed.  He  had  got  beyond  Cape  Soloeis  (Spartel)  to 
a  country  inhabited  by  a  dwarfish  people,  who  dressed 
in  palm-leaves;  and  there,  as  he  declared,  the  ship 
stopped,  and  'would  go  no  further.  He  had  evidently 
fallen  in  with  the  southerly  trade-wind,  and  was  not 
aware  that,  in  order  to  proceed,  he  ought  to  have 


88 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


pushed  across  towards  the  South  American  continent. 
He  met  with  a  fate  worse  even  than  that  of  some  later 
discoverers:  lie  was  not  only  disbelieved,  but  put  to 
death  on  his  return.  Davius  appears  to  have  taken  a 
great  interest  in  such  discoveries,  and  it  was  he  who 
sent  Scylax  the  Carian  down  the  Indus  to  explore  the 
Indian  Ocean.*  • 

Among  the  strange  customs  which  iWodotus  re¬ 
cords  of  the  Scythians  was  their  manner  ot  keeping 
the  anniversary  of  the  burial  of  their  kings.  They 
slew  fifty  young  men  and  fifty  choice  horses,  stuffed 
the  bodies  of  both,  and  set  them  up  round  the  tomb 
in  a  circle,  the  men  mounted  on  the  horses,  a  ghastly 
body-guard  for  the  royal  ghost*  Their  great  deity  was 
the  god  of  war,  whom  they  worshiped  under  the  shape 
of  a  scimitar.  The  Russiau  or  Turkish  vapor-bath 
would  appear  to  have  been  another  of  their  institu¬ 
tions;  but  Herodotus  seems  to  confuse  it  with  the 
process  of  intoxication  by  hemp-seed,  which  was 
known  in  early  times.  They  wTere  also  distinguished 
by  drunkenness  and  dislike  of  foreigners,  like  some  of 
their  supposed  descendants,  wTho  are  not  yet  cured  of 
these  weaknesses. 

Against  this  nation  Darius  is  said  by  Herodotus  to 
have  moved  a  vast  army,  bridging  over  the  Thracian 
Bosphorus  and  the  Danube  with  boats,  and  taking  with 
him  the  Ionian  fleet,  to  the  custody  of  whose  com¬ 
manders  he  committed  the  bridge  over  the  river,  while 
he  passed  on  into  the  northern  wildernesses.  The 


*  This  Scylax,  or  more  probably  a  later  writer  who  traded  on 
his  name,  brought  home  some  remarkable  travelers’  stories. 
He  described  an  Indian  tribe  whose  feet  were  so  large  that  they 
used  them  as  parasols,  and  another  whose  eax’s  were  so  capacious 
that  they  slept  in  them. —See  Rawlinson,  I.  p.  50,  note. 


HERODOTUS. 


89 


Scythians  retreated  before  him  towards  the  Tanais  or 
Don.  Then  they  led  him  such  a  long  chase  that  at 
last  his  palience  was  worn  out.  and  he  sent  to  their 
king  to  demand  that,  as  a  man  of  honor,  he  should 
either  stand  and  fight,  or  deliver  earth  and  water  in 
token  of  submission.  The  Scythian  replied  that  lie 
would  soon  send  him  some  presents  more  to  the 
purpose.  These  arrived  in  due  course  of  time — a 
bird,  a  mouse,  a  frog,  and  five  arrows.  Darius  at 
first  thought  that  this  signified  a  tender  of  homage; 
hut  Gobryas,  one  of  the  Seven,  who  had  an  older 
head,  read  the  hieroglyphic  letter  as  follows:  “Un¬ 
less  you  can  fly  like  a  bird,  or  burrow  like  a  mouse, 
or  swim  like  a  frog,  you  will  not  escape  the  Scyth¬ 
ian  arrows.”  Darius  took  the  hint  and  retreated. 
But  Scythian  horsemen  had  reached  his  bridge  before 
him,  and  tried  1o  prevail  on  the  Ionians  to  destroy  it. 
Miltiades  the  Athenian,  now  tyrant  of  the  Chersonese 
(of  whom  we  shall  hear  again),  called  upon  his  fellow- 
Greeks  to  strike,  once  for  all,  a  blow  for  freedom;  to 
cut  the  bridge,  and  leave  their  Persian  masters  to 
perish.  But  he  was  overruled  in  the  interest  of 
Darius  by  Iiistiseus  of  Miletus,  and  the  Persian  army 
returned  without  irretrievable  loss  from  its  military 
promenade  in  pursuit  of  the  impalpable  Scythians. 
Megabazus  remained  behind  to  reduce  the  Thracian 
tribes  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Hellespont. 

This  leads  our  author  to  discuss  the  ethnology  of 
T1  irace.  It  appeared  to  him  that  if  its  numerous 
tribes  had  been  onl}'  united,  they  would  have  been  a 
match  for  any  existing  nation.  His  Thrace  must  nearly 
have  comprehended  the  present  limits  of  Roumelia,  Bul¬ 
garia,  Servia,  Moldavia,  and  Wallaehia.  The  Getae  or 
Goths,  who  were  subdued  by  Darius  on  his  way  to 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Scythia,  believed  that  when  they  died  they  went  tn  a 
good  spirit  named  Zalmoxis,  to  whom  they  sent  a  mes¬ 
senger  every  five  years;  that  is,  they  sacrificed  a  man 
by  tossing  him  in  the  air  and  catching  him  on  points 
of  lances.  Another  tribe,  when  a  child  was  born,  sat 
round  him,  bewailing  the  miseries  he  would  have  to 
undergo;  while  in  a  case  of  death  thej^  made  a  jubilee 
of  the  funeral,  believing  the  departed  to  have  attained 
everlasting  happiness.  The  same  belief  was  connected 
with  a  custom  in  another  tribe  corresponding  to  the 
“Suttee”  of  the  Hindoos.  When  a  man  died  there 
was  a  sharp  contention  among  his  widows  which  was 
the  worthiest  to  be  slain  over  his  grave,  and  the  sur¬ 
viving  wives  considered  themselves  as  in  disgrace. 
They  marked  high  birth  by  tattooing,  like  the  South 
Sea  Islanders;  and  thought  idleness,  war,  and  plunder 
honorable,  but  agriculture  mean.  The  nation  in  gen¬ 
eral  worshiped  only  the  gods  of  battle,  of  wine,  and 
of  the  chase.  But  the  kings  paid  especial  honor  to  a 
god  corresponding  to  Hermes  or  Mercury,  or  the  Ger¬ 
man  Woden.  Less  was  known  of  the  tribes  north  of 
the  Danube.  The  Sigynnae  wore  a  dress  like  that  of 
the  Medes,  and  possessed  a  breed  of  active,  hardy, 
shaggy  ponies,  the  description  of  which  answers  to  those 
of  the  Shetland  Islands.  Or  possibly  some  vague  rumor 
of  the  harnessed  dogs  of  Kamtchatka  may  have  reached 
the  ears  of  our  author.  He  does  not  think  that  the 
Thracians  could  have  been  correct  in  saying  that  a 
tract  of  country  beyond  the  Danube  was  so  infested 
with  bees  as  to  be  uninhabitable,  as  bees  cannot  bear 
much  cold.  They  may.  have  meant  mosquitoes. 

Megabazus  was  now  commissioned  to  transport  bodily 
to  Persia  the  whole  tribe  of  the  Pasonians,  who  lived 
to  the  north  of  Macedonia,  of  whose  industry  Darius 


HERODOTUS . 


91 


had  conceived  an  exaggerated  notion,  by  seeing  one  of 
tlieir  women  at  Sardis  bearing  a  pitcher  on  her  head, 
leading  a  horse,  and  spinning  flax  all  at  the  same  time. 
He  effected  this  task  with  no  great  difficulty;  but  other 
tribes  resisted  his  arms  with  success,  and  especially 
those  who  inhabited  the  Lake  Prasias.  These  must 
have  been  a  relic  of  the  most  ancient  population  of 
Europe.  Their  habits  were  precisely  the  same  as  those 
of  the  singular  people  whose  whole  manner  of  life 
has  been  brought  to  light  by  the  discovery  of  ancient 
piles  iu  the  lakes  of  Zurich  in  Switzerland,  and  who 
appear  to  have  inhabited  nearly  all  the  comparatively 
shallow  lakes  that  have  hitherto  been  examined.  This 
pile-city  of  Prasias  is  thus  described: 

“  Platforms  supported  on  tall  piles  were  fixed  in  the 
midst  of  the  lake,  approached  from  the  land  by  a  single 
narrow  bridge.  Originally  all  the  citizens  in  common 
drove  the  piles  for  the  platform,  but  afterwards  every 
man  drove  three  piles  for  every  wife  he  married,  and 
they  had  each  several  wives.  Each  man  had  his  own 
hut  on  the  platform,  and  his  trap-door  opening  through 
the  scaffolding  on  the  lake  below.  They  tied  the  little 
children  by  the  leg  to  prevent  their  rolling  into  the 
water.”  (The  proportionate  number  of  children’s  bones 
found  in  the  Swiss  lakes  would  argue  that  this  custom 
was  but  negligently  observed  in  those  regions.)  “  They 
fed  their  horses  and  other  cattle  upon  fish,  of  which 
there  was  such  an  abundance  that  they  had  only  to  let 
down  a  basket  through  the  trap-door  into  the  water, 
and  draw  it  up  full,” 

What  was  the  ultimate  fate  of  this  amphibious  col¬ 
ony  we  do  not  learn;  but  very  many  of  the  corre¬ 
sponding  settlements  iu  central  Europe  bear  traces  of 
having  been  destroyed  by  fire.  For  the  present  these 


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T1IE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


lake-people  were  impregnable,  and  Megabazus  turned 
bis  attention  to  Macedonia,  sending  first  to  the  court 
of  King  Amyntas  an  embassy  of  seven  noble  Persians 
to  demand  earth  and  water.  Amyntas  entertained 
them  at  a  feast;  but  when  tlieir  attentions  to  the  ladies 
of  the  court  began  to  be  offensive,  his  son  Alexander, 
indignant  at  the  insult,  dressed  up  some  Macedonian 
youths  to  personate  the  ladies,  whom  he  had  managed 
to  withdraw  under  promise  of  their  return,  and  assassi¬ 
nated  the  Persian  envoys  when  heavy  with  wine.  An 
expedition  was  afterwards  sent  to  inquire  after  their 
fate,  but  Alexander  conciliated  the  commander  with 
hush  money  and  the  hand  of  his  sister  in  marriage. 
The  royal  family  of  Macedonia  were  of  Argive  origin, 
according  to  Herodotus;  otherwise,  he  says  they  would 
not  have  been  allowed  to  contend  at  the  Olympic 
games.  This  Greek  descent  was  used  subsequently  by 
Philip  of  Macedon  as  a  plea  for  his  intervention  in  the 
affairs  of  Greece. 

A  casual  notice  of  the  founding  of  Cyrene  leads 
Herodotus  into  Libya,  whither  we  have  no  space  to 
follow  him.  He  touches  on  the  known  north  African 
tribes,  and  glances  at  the  unknown,  relating  many  mar¬ 
velous  stories;  in  fact,  his  love  for  anthropology  and 
geography  makes  him  seize  any  excuse  for  imparting 
information.  He  well-nigli  exhausts  the  world  as 
known  to  the  ancients,  and  might  have  wept,  as  Alex¬ 
ander  did  that  he  had  no  more  worlds  to  conquer,  that 
he  had  no  more  to  describe.  Of  one  remote  and  apocry¬ 
phal  region  he  confesses  he  knew  nothing.  He  was  not 
sure  that  the  islands  called  the  Cassiteridcs  (“  Tin- 
Islands”)  had  any  real  existence;  but  he  had  been  told 
that  tin  came  “  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.”  Such  is 
the  sole  notice  which  the  great  traveler  has  left  of  us 


HERODOTUS. 


93 


or  our  ancestors;  for  it  is  probable  that  the  Cassitcrides 
were  the  coast  of  Cornwall. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 

“  If  gods  will  not  misfortune  send, 

List  to  the  counsel  of  a  friend: 

Call  on  thyself  calamity; 

And  that,  from  all  thy  treasures  bright, 

In  which  thy  heart  takes  most  delight. 

Commit  forthwith  to  deepest  sea.” 

— Schiller,  “  Ring  of  Polycrates.  ” 

The  original  constitution  of  most  of  the  Greek  States 
was  a  limited  monarchy,  though  the  king  was  emphati¬ 
cally  “hedged  by  divinity,”  since  the  founder  of  his 
family  was  generally  supposed  to  be  a  god.  In  time,  as 
the  royal  prestige  wore  out,  this  constitution  was  gen¬ 
erally  superseded  by  an  oligarchy,  which  lasted  until 
some  ambitious  individual,  by  courting  the  unprivi¬ 
leged  classes,  managed  to  raise  himself  to  the  suprem¬ 
acy. 

In  the  fifth  century  before  Christ  there  were  so 
many  of  these  usurpers  at  the  same  time  in  Greece, 
that  it  has  been  called  the  Age  of  Tyrants.  Mr.  Grote 
prefers  to  call  them  “despots;”  but  the  name  matters 
little  if  no  sinister  meaning  is  necessarily  attached  to 
the  word  Tyrant.  Their  number  at  one  time  was  a 
fact  in  support  of  those  who  believe  in  social  and 
political  epidemics.  One  of  the  most  famous  of  them 
was  Polycrates  of  Samos.  He  was  great  in  arms  and 
arts,  and  the  poet  Anacreon  was  the  companion,  of  his 


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revels,  just  as  Goethe  enjoyed  his  Rhenish  with  Charles 
Augustus,  the  jolly  Grand-Duke  of  Weimar.  His  pros¬ 
perity  was  so  perfect,  that  his  friend  King  Amasis  of 
Egypt,  as  a  prudent  man,  thought.it  his  duty  to  give 
him  a  solemn  warning,  and  advised  him  to  avert  the 
anger  of  the  gods  by  sacrificing  some  object  which  he 
held  very  precious.  Polycrates  chose  out  of  his  abun¬ 
dant  treasures  a  favorite  emerald  ring,  which  he  at  once 
threw  into  the  sea.  Five  or  six  days  afterwards,  a  poor 
fisherman  caught  so  magnificent  a  fish  that  it  struck 
him  that  it  was  only  fit  to  set  before  a  king.  To  Polyc¬ 
rates,  therefore,  he  presented  it,  with  many  compli¬ 
ments.  The  tyrant,  with  his  usual  geniality,  made  it  a 
condition  that  the  fisherman  would  come  and  help  him 
to  eat  it.  He  bashfully  accepted  the  honor.  When  the 
fish  was  served,  behold!  the  emerald  ring  was  there  in 
its  inside.  The  servants  were  exceedingly  glad  that  the 
king’s  lost  ring  was  found — possibly  they  had  been 
charging  each  other  with  stealing  it;  but  Polycrates 
looked  serious,  for  he  felt  that  the  gods  had  rejected 
his  offering.  He  thought  it  right  to  inform  his  friend 
Amasis  of  the  result.  Amasis,  with  less  generosity  than 
foresight,  at  once  sent  a  herald  to  Samos  to  renounce 
the  alliance  of  Polycrates,  as  he  felt  sure  chat  the  god 
had  decreed  his  ruin,  and  did  not  wish  to  be  himself 
involved  in  it.  The  tale  of  the  -fisherman  and  the  ring 
has  been  transferred  to  Arabian  fable. 

Fortune  still  continued  to  smile  on  Polycrates,  and 
he  overcame  all  his  enemies  by  force  or  fraud.  Some 
Samians,  whom  he  had  driven  out,  managed  to  set  on 
foot  against  him  an  expedition  from  Lacedaemon.  The 
visit  of  these  people  to  Sparta  is  characteristically  told. 
They  made  a  long  speech  there  in  the  assembly,  which 
they  would  have  hardly  done  if  they  had  known  the 


HERODOTUS. 


Spartan  temper  better.  The  authorities  made  reply 
that  they  had  forgotten  the  first  half  of  their  discourse, 
and  could  not  understand  the  second.  The  Samians 
then  held  up  an  empty  bagr  merely  remarking,  “The 
bag  wants  flour.”  The  Spartans  said  that  the  word 
“  bag”  was  quite  unnecessary — the  gesture  was  enough- 
However,  they  sent  a  force  to  Samos  to  support  the  ex¬ 
iles;  and  Polycrates  is  said  to  have  bribed  them  to  re¬ 
turn  with  leaden  money  gilt  over.  The  existence  of 
the  story  is  singularly  illustrative  of  the  avarice  as  well 
as  the  gullibility  of  this  people. 

But  the  doom  of  Polycrates  could  only  be  deferred. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Cambyses  he  was  un¬ 
fortunate  enough  to  excite  the  cupidity  of  Orcetes,  the 
Persian  satrap  of  Sardis,  who  proceeded  to  set  a  trap 
for  him.  Orcetes  said  that  he  feared  the  covetousness 
of  Cambyses,  and  offered  to  deposit  all  his  treasure  with 
Polycrates.  The  latter  sent  his  secretary  to  inspect  it, 
who  was  shown  some  large  chests  full  of  stones,  just 
covered  with  gold.  Satisfied  with  this  report,  in  spite 
of  all  the  warnings  of  his  daughter,  Polycrates  started 
for  the  court  of  Orcetes  to  fetch  the  treasure.  The  sa¬ 
trap  at  once  arrested  him,  put  him  to  a  cruel  death,  and 
then  impaled  his  dead  body.  But  the  murderer  after¬ 
wards  came  to  a  violent  end  himself  in  the  reign  of 
Darius. 

Another  specimen  of  a  tyrant,  and  this,  too,  in  our 
common  acceptation  of  the  word,  was  Periander  of 
Corinth,  the  son  of  Cypselus.  By  his  origin  he  was 
partly  patrician  and  partly  plebeian.  At  one  time  the 
government  of  Corinth  was  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
family  called  the  Bacchiadse,  who  only  intermarried 
with  one  another.  But  one  of  them  happened  to  have 
a  daughter  called,  from  her  lameness,  Labda  (from  the 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


V(d 

Greek  letter  A  (L),  "which  originally  had  one  leg  shorter 
than  the  other),  whom  her  parents  were,  on  this  ac¬ 
count,  obliged  to  marry  out  of  the  family  to  one  Aetion, 
a  man  of  the  people.  In  consequence  of  oracles  which 
boded  ill  to  Corinth  from  a  son  of  Action,  the  rulers 
sent  ten  of  their  number  to  dispatch  the  infant  as  soon 
as  he  was  born.  When  they  came  and  asked  to  see  the 
child,  Labda  showed  it  them,  thinking  their  visit  was 
only  complimentary.  They  had  agreed  that  whoever 
took  the  child  first  in  his  arms  should  dash  it  on  the 
ground.  Providentially,  however,  the  babe  smiled  in 
the  man’s  face  who  had  taken  him,  so  that  he  had  no 
heart  to  kill  it,  but  passed  it  on  to  his  neighbor,  and  he 
to  another,  and  so  it  went  through  all  the  ten.  When 
the  mother  had  carried  the  child  indoors  again,  she 
overheard  the  party  outside  loudly  reproaching  one  an¬ 
other  with  their  faint-heartedness  in  not  making  away 
with  it.  Fearing  from  this  that  they  would  return,  she 
hid  the  child  away  in  a  chest  or  corn-bin,  so  that  when 
they  re-entered  they  could  not  find  him.  From  this  es¬ 
cape  he  was  called  Cypselus  or  “  Bin.”  When  he  grew 
up  he  made  himself  despot  of  Corinth,  and  ruled 
harshly,  visiting  the  citizens  with  confiscations,  banish¬ 
ment,  and  death.  He  resigned  thirty  years,  and  then  his 
son  Periander  succeeded  him,  who,  at  first,  was  a  mild 
ruler,  until  he  sent  to  Thrasybulus,  despot  of  Miletus, 
to  ask  him  the  best  way  of  governing  his  people. 
Thrasybulus  took  the  ‘Corinthian  herald  forth  into  the 
fields,  and  as  he  passed  through  the  corn,  still  question¬ 
ing  him  about  Corinthian  affairs,  he  snapped  off  and 
threw  away  all  the  ears  that  overtopped  the  rest.  He 
walked  through  the  whole  field  doing  this,  till  the  dam¬ 
age  was  considerable.  After  this  he  dismissed  his  vis- 
itor  without  a  word  of  advice.  When  the  messenger 


HERODOTUS. 


97 


returned,  to  Periander,  lie  said  that  he  had  been  sent  oil 
a  fool’s  errand  to  a  madman,  who  gave  him  no  answer, 
but  only  walked  through  a  field  ‘spoiling  his  wheat  by 
plucking  off  all  the  longest  ears.*  Periander  said  noth¬ 
ing;  but  he  understood  the  meaning  of  Thrasybulus, 
which  was,  that  he  was  to  govern  by  cutting  off  all  the 
foremost  citizens.  After  this  he  became  a  much  worse 
tyrant  than  his  father,  and  finished  the  work  which  he 
had  begun.  On  one  occasion  he  stripped  all  the  women 
of  Corinth  of  their  clothes.  Having  sent  to  consult  an 
oracle  of  the  dead  f  about  some  lost  property,  the  shade 
of  his  wife  Melissa  (whom  he  had  put  to  death)  appeared 
to  him,  and  said  that  she  wras  cold,  and  had  literally 
nothing  to  put  on;  for  the  robes  buried  with  her  were 
of  no  use,  since  they  had  not  been  burnt.  So  he  made 
proclamation  that  all  the  matrons  should  go  to  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  Juno  in  full  dress,  and  there  having  surrounded 
them  with  his  guards,  took  all  their  clothes  from  them, 
and  burnt  them  as  an  offering  to  his  dead  queen. 

The  relations  of  Periander  with  his  younger  son 
Lycophrou  form  one  of  the  most  touching  episodes  in 
Herodotus.  The  lad  had  learnt  the  fact  of  his  mother’s 
murder,  and  from  that  time  would  neither  speak  to  his 
father  nor  answer  him.  The  father  at  last  banished 
him  from  his  house.  He  even  sent  'warning  to  the 
friends  with  whom  his  son  took  refuge  that  all  who 


*  The  English  reader  will  remember  the  words  of  the  gardener 
in  Shakespeare: 

“  Go  thou,  and  like  an  executioner, 

Cut  off  the  heads  of  too  fast-growing  sprays, 

That  look  too  lofty  in  our  commonwealth.” 

— “  Richard II.,”  Act.  iii.  sc.  4. 

t Hence  the  word  “necromancy.”  The  parallel  of  Saul,  the 
witch  of  Endor,  and  the  ghost  of  Samuel,  is  at  once  suggested. 


98 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


harbored  him  did  so  at  their  peri] — nay,  that  any  who 
even  spoke  to  him  should  pay  a  fine  to  Apollo.  The 
lad  wandered  miserably  from  one  to  the  other,  and  at 
jast  was  found  lying  in  the  public  porticoes.  Then 
Periander  himself  went  to  him,  and  upbraided  him  with 
his  folly  in  depriving  himself  by  his  obstinacy  of  a 
princely  home.  Lycophron  only  answered  by  remind¬ 
ing  his  father  that  he  had  now  himself  incurred  the  for¬ 
feit  to  the  god.  Periander  saw  that  the  case  was  hope¬ 
less,  and  sent  him  to  Corey ra  for  safe  keeping.  But 
when  he  found  himself  growing  old,  and  unequal  to 
the  cares  of  government,  and  saw  that  his  elder  son  was 
quite  incompetent,  he  sent  to  offer  to  resign  in  Lyco- 
phron’s  favor.  No  reply  came.  Then  the  father  sent 
his  favorite  sister  to  treat  with  him,  and  try  to  soften 
his  heart.  Lycopliron’s  answer  was  that  he  would 
never  set  foot  again  in  Samos  while  his  father  lived. 
Periander  humbled  himself  so  far  as  to  offer  to  retire 
himself  to  Corey  ra,  and  allowed  the  son  to  take  his 
place.  To  this  Lycophron  agreed;  on  hearing  which 
the  people  of  Corcyra  murdered  him,  in  dread  of  re¬ 
ceiving  as  their  master  the  terrible  Periander. 

A  pleasanter  story  in  connection  with  him  will  be 
best  told,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  in  the  old  historian’s 
own  words,  with  a  little  retrenchment  of  his  diffuseness. 

Arion  and  the  Dolphin. 

In  Periander’s  days  there  lived  a  minstrel  of  Lesbos, 
Arion  by  name,  who  wras  second  to  none  as  a  player  on 
the  lute.  This  Arion,  who  spent  most  of  his  time  with 
Periander,  sailed  to  Italy  and  Sicily,  and  having  earned 
by  his  minstrelsy  great  store  of  treasure,  hired  a  Corin- 
1  liian  ship  to  go  back  to  Corinth — for  whom  should  he 
trust  rather  than  the  Corinthians,  whom  he  knew  so 


HERODOTUS. 


99 


well.  When  the  crew  were  out  at  sea,  they  took  coun¬ 
sel  together  to  throw  Arion  overboard,  and  keep  his 
treasure.  But  he  divined  their  intent,  and  besought 
them  to  take  his  money,  but  spare  his  life.  But  the 
sliipmen  refused,  and  bade  him  either  straightway  kill 
himself  on  board,  so  that  he  might  be  buried  on  shore, 
or  leap  into  the  sea  of  his  own  free  will.  Then  Arion, 
being  in  a  sore  strait,  begged,  since  it  must  be  so,  that 
he  might  don  his  vestments,  and  sing  one  strain  stand¬ 
ing  on  the  quarterdeck;  and  when  he  had  ended  his 
song  he  promised  to  dispatch  himself.  [He  asked  to 
put  on  his  sacred  garb,  knowing  that  thereby  he  should 
gain  the  protection  of  Apollo.]  The  seamen  consented, 
as  well  pleased  once  more  to  hear  the  master  of  all 
singers,  and  made  space  to  hear  him,  withdrawing  into 
the  midship;  and  he  chanted  a  lively  air,  and  then 
plunged  overboard,  all  as  he  was.  So  tliey'sailed  away 
to  Corinth,  and  thought  no  more  of  Arion.  But,  lo!  a 
dolphin  took  the  minstrel  up  on  his  back,  and  landed 
him  safely  at  the  promontory  of  Toeuarus  in  Laconia, 
whence  he  made  his  way  to  Corinth,  all  in  his  sacred 
robes,  and  told  there  all  that  had  befallen  him.  But 
Periander  did  not  believe  him,  and  kept  him  under 
guard.  At  last  the  shipmen  came,  and  when  Periander 
asked  them  what  had  become  of  Arion,  they  saicl 
they  had  left  him  safe  and  sound  at  Tarentum,  in 
Italy-.  Then  Periander  produced  Arion  in  his  vest¬ 
ments,  just  as  he  was  when  he  leaped  overboard,  and 
they  wTere  struck  dumb,  and  could  deny  their  guilt  no 
more.  And  Arion  set  up  as  a  thank-offering  to  the  god, 
an  effigy  of  a  man  riding  on  a  dolphin. 


Such  is  the  legend  given  by  Herodotus.  Another 
version  makes  Apollo  appear  to  Arion  in  a  dream, 


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assuring  him  of  succor  before  he  leaped  overboard,  and 
adds  that,  after  landing,  the  bard  neglected  to  put  back 
again  into  the  sea  his  preserver,  who  consequently  per¬ 
ished,  and  was  buried  by  the  king  of  the  country. 
When  the  sailors  came,  they  were  made  to  swear  to  the 
truth  of  their  story  on  the  dolphin’s  tomb,  where  Arion 
had  been  previously  hid.  When  he  suddenly  appeared 
they  confessed  their  guilt,  and  were  punished  by  cruci¬ 
fixion,  for  the  double  crime  of  robbery  with  intent  to 
murder,  and  perjury.  Arion  and  his  bearer  afterwards 
became  a  constellation,  by  the  will  of  Apollo,  according 
to  a  later  addition  to  the  legend. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  the  legend  of  Arion  grew  out 
of  the  group  of  the  man  on  the  dolphin,  which  may  have 
been  set  up  to  commemorate  the  expedition  which 
sailed  from  Laconia  to  found  Tarentum,  comprised  of 
Dorian  and  Achrean  Greeks;  the  dolphin,  sacred  to 
Neptune,  symbolizing  the  Achaean  element,  and  the 
minstrel  loved  of  Apollo,  the  Dorian.  The  legend  of 
Colston,  the  munificent  Bristol  merchant,  whose  anni¬ 
versary  is  still  celebrated  at  Bristol,  is  well  known  in  the 
wrnst  of  England.  A  ship  in  which  he  sailed  was  said 
to  have  sprung  a  leak,  which  was  miraculously  plugged 
by  a  self-sacrificing  dolphin,  and  so  the  ship  came  home 
safe.  Some  rationalists  have  volunteered  the  prosaic 
explanation  that  Colston  wns  saved  and  brought  home 
in  another  vessel  called  the  Dolphin.  One  of  the  char¬ 
itable  societies  formed  in  his  honor  bears  the  name  of 
the  “Dolphin.”  The  sacred  character  of  this  fish  (or 
rather  cetacean)  is  doubtless  of  remote  antiquity.  He 
is  the  subject  of  a  little  poem  (exquisite  in  the  original) 
by  Philip  of  Thessalonica, 


HERODOTUS. 


101 


The  Dolphin  and  the  Nightingale. 

“  Blaming  Boreas,  o’er  the  sea  I  was  flying  slowly, 

For  the  wind  of  Trace  to  me  is  a  thing  unholy, 

When  his  back  a  dolphin  showed,  bending  with  devotion, 

And  the  child  of  ether  rode  on  the  chilcl  of  ocean. 

I  am  that  sweet-chanting  bird  wThom  the  night  doth  smile  at ; 
And  like  one  that  kept  his  word  proved  my  dolphin  pilot. 

As  he  glided  onward  still  with  his  oarless  rowing, 

With  the  lute  within  my  bill  I  did  cheer  his  going. 

Dolphins  never  ply  for  hire,  but  for  love  and  glory, 

When  the  sons  of  song  require  ;  trust  Arion’s  story.” 

There  is  also  a  beautiful  version  of  the  legend  by  the 
Roman  poet  Ovid. 

Cleisthenes  of  Sicyon  was  another  eminent  tyrant; 
and  a  magnificent  man  in  every  way.  He  had  one 
beautiful  daughter  named  Agariste,  through  whom  des¬ 
potism  was  fated  to  receive  its  death-blow  in  Athens. 
Like  the  Orsinis  and  Colonnas  of  medieval  Rome, 
whose  feuds  gave  Rienzi  his  opportunity  to  establish 
democracy,  the  patrician  families  of  the  Isagorids  and 
Alcmaeonids  strove  for  supremacy  at  Athens,  and  their 
strife  gave  birth  to  freedom.  Herodotus  gives  a  quaint 
account  of  the  foundation  of  the  great  wealth  of  the 
latter  family. 

Alcmseon,  the  son  of  Megacles,  had  assisted  Croesus 
in  his  negotiations  with  the  Delphic  oracle,  and  was  in¬ 
vited  in  consequence  to  the  court  of  Sardis.  When  he 
had  arrived,  Croesus  gave  him  leave  to  go  into  the  treas¬ 
ury  and  take  as  much  gold  as  he  could  carry  away  on 
his  person  at  one  time.  So  he  put  on  the  largest  tunic 
he  could  find,  so  as  to  make  a  capacioys  fold,  and  the 
roomiest  buskins.  First  he  stowed  his  boots  with  gold 
dust,  then  he  packed  his  clothes  with  it,  then  he  pow¬ 
dered  his  hair  with  it,  and  lastly  he  took  a  mouthful  of 


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it,  and  so  came  out  of  the  treasury  “dragging  his  legs 
with  difficulty,  and  looking  like  anything  rather  than  a 
human  being,  as  his  mouth  was  choked  up,  and  every¬ 
thing  about  him  wa$  in  a  plethoric  state.”  When  Croe¬ 
sus  saw  him  he  was  highly  amused,  and  gave  him  what 
he  had  taken  and  as  much  again.  When  Alcmaeon 
came  home  to  Athens  he  found  himself  rich  enough  to 
enter  as  a  competitor  at  the  great  Olympic  games,  and 
win  the  blue  ribbon  of  that  national  festival — the  four- 
horse  cliariot-race,  which  made  the  winner  a  hero  in  the 
eyes  of  his  countrymen  forever. 

Two  generations  afterwards  this  family  made  a  splen¬ 
did  marriage.  Cleisthenes  of  Sicyon  had  added  this  to 
his  renown,  that  he  too  had  been  a  victor  at  Olympia. 
Under  these  circumstances  he  was  not  inclined  to  throw 
away  a  beauty  and  heiress  like  his  daughter  Agariste  on 
the  first  comer,  but,  like  the  father  in  Goldoni’s  “Matri- 
monio  per  Concorso,”  he  proclaimed  that  she  should  be 
wooed  and  won  by  pubfic  competition.  He  invited  all 
the  most  eligible  youths  in  Greece  to  come  and  spend  a 
year  at  his  court,  promising  to  give  his  decision  when  it 
had  elapsed;  and  he  prepared  an  arena  expressly  for 
the  purpose  of  testing  their  athletic  proficiency.  Among 
the  suitors  was  the  exquisite  Smyndyrides  of  Sybaris, 
the  most  luxurious  man  of  the  most  luxurious  Hellenic 
city.  It  was  he  who  was  said  to  have  complained  of 
the  crumpled  rose-leaf  on  his  couch,  and  to  have  fainted 
when  he  once  saw  a  man  hard  at  work  in  the  fields.  He 
would  certainly  have  broken  down  in  the  athletic  or¬ 
deal.  Not  so  Males,  the  brother  of  Titormus,  a  kind  of 
human  gorilla  of  enormous  strength  who  lived  in  the 
wilds  of  AEtolia;  but  he  would  scarcely  have  been  pol¬ 
ished  enough  as  a  son-in-law  for  Cleisthenes.  And  the 
father  might  be  loath  to  intrust  his  daughter  to  the  son 


HERODOTUS. 


103 


of  Pheidon,  the  despot  of  Argos,  a  man  notorious  for 
rapacity  and  violence.  The  two  Athenian  candidates, 
Megacles  son  of  Alcmaeon,*  and  Hippocleides,  a  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  great  rival  family,  were  probably  the  favor¬ 
ites  from  the  first;  for  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that  there 
was  no  betting  on  an  occasion  so  tempting  to  the  sport¬ 
ing  characters  of  antiquity.  Cleisthenes  having  first  as¬ 
certained  that  his  guests  could  give  satisfactory  refer¬ 
ences,  made  proof  of  their  manhood,  their  tempers,  their 
accomplishments,  and  their  tastes, — sometimes  bringing 
them  together,  sometimes  holding  private  conversations 
with  each.  Although  gymnastics  were  very  important, 
he  seemed  to  have  laid  most  stress  on  their  qualities  as 
diners  out.  The  man  who  at  the  end  of  the  year  seemed, 
in  the  opinion  of  all,  to  have  the  best  chance,  was  Hip¬ 
pocleides,  who  indeed  was  connected  with  the  royal 
Cypselids  of  Corinth,  as  well  as  an  Athenian  of  the 
highest  fashion.  When  the  great  day  arrived  for  the 
suitors  to  know  their  fate,  Cleisthenes  sacrificed  a  hun¬ 
dred  oxen,  and  gave  a  public  feast,  to  which  he  invited 
not  only  the  foreign  suitors,  but  all  his  own  people. 
After  the  feast  there  was  one  more  trial  in  music  and  in 
rhetoric, — probably  to  see  how  the  suitors  could  carry 
their  wine.  As  the  cup  went  round,  Hippocleides, 
abashing  the  rest  of  the  party  by  his  assurance,  called 
to  the  flute-player  to  strike  up  a  dance.  Then  he 
danced,  in  a  manner  which  gave  perfect  satisfaction 
to  himself,  though  Cleisthenes  began  to  look  grave. 
Next  he  ordered  a  table  to  be  brought  in,  mounted  on 
it,  and  rehearsed  certain  Laconian  and  Attic  figures. 


*  The  son  in  this  family  took  the  grandfather’s  name;  Mega¬ 
cles,  Alcmaeon,  Megacles,  Alcmaeon,  and  so  on.  This  was  Ale- 
mffion  II. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


To  crown  all,  lie  stood  on  his  head  and  kicked  his  legs 
in  the  air.  This  last  performance,  which  Hippocleides 
might  perhaps  have  learned  in  his  youth  from  the  street- 
boys  of  the  Piraeus,  was  too  much  for  Cleistlienes,  who 
had  long  contained  himself  with  difficulty.  “Son  of 
Tisander,  tliou  hast  danced  away  thy  marriage,”  he  ex¬ 
claimed,  in  tierce  disgust.  The  other  quietly  answered, 

“  Hippocleides  does  not  care!”  from  which  “  Hippoclei¬ 
des  don’t  care”  became  a  proverbial  expression.  Then, 
as  Herodotus  tells  us,  Cleistlienes  rose  and  spoke  to  this 
effect: 

“  Gentlemen,  suitors  of  my  daughter, — I  am  well 
pleased  with  you  all— so  well  pleased  that,  if  it  were 
possible,  I  would  make  you  all  my  sons-in-law.  But,  as 
I  have  but  one  daughter,  that  is  unfortunately  impossi¬ 
ble.  You  have  all  done  me  much  honor  in  desiring  the 
alliance  of  my  house.  In  consideration  of  this,  and  of 
the  inconvenience  to  which  you  have  been  put  in  wast¬ 
ing  your  valuable  time  at  my  court,  I  beg  to  present 
you  with  a  talent  of  silver  each.  But  to  Megacles,  the 
son  of  xilcmseon,  I  betroth  my  daughter  Agariste  to  be 
his  wife  according  to  the  usage  of  Athens.” 

The  issue  of  this  marriage  was  Cleisthenes,  the  great 
Athenian  reformer,  who  was  named  after  his  maternal 
grandfather.  •  - 

Pisistratus,  the  despot  of  Athens,  has  been  already 
mentioned  as  contemporary  with  Croesus.  He  won  im¬ 
mortality  by  digesting  the  poems  of  Homer  into  a  con¬ 
secutive  whole, — settling,  as  it  were,  the  canon  of  the 
Greek  Scriptures.  His  rule  was  just  and  mild,  until  his  . 
enemies  forced  greater  severity  upon  him  in  his  latter 
days.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Hippias.  An  abor¬ 
tive  attempt  to  assassinate  this  prince  was  made  by  two 
men  bound  together  by  the  tie  of  romantic  friendship 
peculiar  to  the  Greeks,  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton. 


HERODOTUS. 


105 


Tliis  pair  have  always  been  celebrated  as  model  patriots 
by  the  admirers  of  tyrannicide,  but  they  bungled  in 
their  business  by  slaying  the  wrong  brother,  Hipparchus 
instead  of  Hippias,  and  only  provoked  Hippias  to  stern¬ 
er  measures  of  repression.  At  last  the  Alcmseonids, 
growing  weary  of  exile,  made  such  strong  interest  with 
the  god  of  Delphi  that  his  oracle  continually  urged  the 
Spartans  to  expel  the  Pisistratids.  The  clan,  after  a 
long  struggle,  were  compelled  to  quit  Athens,  and  re¬ 
tired  to  Sigeium,  on  the  Hellespont,  having  selected  this 
asylum  as  most  convenient  for  intriguing  with  the  Court 
of  Persia  for  their  restoration.  They  had  ruled  in  Ath¬ 
ens  from  b.c.  560  to  b.c.  510,  which  wTas  about  the  date 
of  the  expulsion  of  the  kings  from  Rome.  They  traced 
their  origin  to  Codrus  and  Melantlms,  semi-mythical 
kings  of  Attica,  and  remotely  to  the  Homeric  Nestor  of 
Pylos,  after  whose  son  Pisistratus  the  great  ruler  of 
Athens  was  named. 

A  festival  song  in  honor  of  the  famous  tyrannicides 
was  long  the  “Marseillaise”  of  republican  Athens: 

The  Sword  and  the  Myrtle. 

I’ll  wreath  with  myrtle-bough  my  sword, 

Like  those  who  struck  down  Athens’  lord, 

Our  laws  engrafting  equal  right  on— 

Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton. 

Harmodius  dear,  thou  art  not  dead, 

But  in  the  happy  isles,  they  say, 

Where  fleet  Achilles  lives  for  aye, 

And  good  Tydeides  Diomed. 

.I’ll  wreath  my  sword  with  myrtle-bough. 

Like  those  who  laid  Hipparchus  Ioav, 

When' on  Athene’s  holiday 

The  tyrant  wight  they  dared  to  slay. 

Because  they  slew  him,  and  because  ►  • 

They  gave  to  Athens  equal  laws,  . 

Eternal  fame  shall  shed  a  light  on 
Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton. 


106 


THE  ELZEVIR  JJBRART. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IOKI  A. 

“  O  for  a  tongue  to  curse  the  slave. 

Whose  treason,  like  a  deadly  blight, 

Comes  o’er  the  counsels  of  the  brave, 

And  blasts  them  in  their  hour  of  might!” 

— Moore,  “  Fire-Worshippers.” 

Darius  had  not  forgotten  the  good  service  done  him  by 
Histiseus  of  Miletus,  in  preserving  the  Danube  bridge 
for  him  on  his  hurried  retreat  from  the  Scythian  expe¬ 
dition.  He  had  given  him  a  grant  of  land  in  Thrace, 
in  a  most  desirable  position  for  a  new  settlement.  But 
he  was  afterwards  persuaded  that  he  had  done  wrong. 
A  shrewd  Greek  would  be  tempted  to  form  there  the 
nucleus  of  an  independent  power.  He  therefore  sent 
for  Histiseus,  and  detained  him  in  an  honorable  captiv¬ 
ity  in  his  own  court  at  Susa.  And  this  detention  led  to 
the  great  Persian  war. 

There  was  a  revolution  in  the  little  island  of  Naxos. 
“  The  men  of  substance,”  as  they  were  literally  called, 
were  expelled,  and  came  to  Miletus  begging  Aristag- 
oras,  now  deputy-governor  in  the  absence  of  his  father- 
in-law  Histiseus,  to  restore  them.  Thinking  to  get 
Naxos  for  himself,  Aristagoras  procured  the  aid  of 
a  Persian  flotilla.  On  the  way,  a  quarrel  arose  about  a 
Greek  captain  whom  Megabat es,  the  Persian  admiral, 
had  punished,  because  he  found  no  watch  set  on  board 
his  ship.  The  punishment  consisted  in  binding  him 
down  so  that  his  head  protruded  from  one  of  the  ports 
or  rowlocks,  and  Aristagoras  had  taken  upon  himself 


HERODOTUS. 


107 


to  release  him.  Megabates,  in  dudgeon,  sent  to  warn 
the  Naxians,  who  were  to  have  been  surprised,  and  the 
expedition  failed.  Then  Aristagoras,  finding  himself 
unable  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  armament,  as  had 
been  stipulated,  thought  of  securing  his  position  by  the 
desperate  expedient  of  stirring  up  a  revolt  at  Miletus 
against  Persia.  He  was  confirmed  in  this  resolution  by 
the  arrival  of  a  singular  courier  from  Histiseus,  who 
was  determined  at  any  cost  to  escape  from  the  forced 
hospitalities  of  Susa.  Histiaeus  had  taken  a  slave, 
shaved  his  head,  punctured  certain  letters  on  the  bare 
crown,  then  kept  him  till  the  hair  was  grown,  and  sent 
him  to  Aristagoras  with  merely  the  verbal  message  that 
he  was  to  shave  his  head.  When  Aristagoras  had 
played  the  barber,  he  found  that  the  living  dispatch 
bore  the  word  “revolt.” 

His  first  step  was  to  proclaim  democracy  throughout 
the  Greek  confederacy.  The  different  despots  were 
given  up  to  their  fellow-citizens,  to  be  dealt  with  ac¬ 
cording  to  their  deserts.  It  speaks  strongly  in  favor  of 
the  character  of  their  “  tyranny  ”  that  nearly  all  were 
dismissed  uninjured.  One  only — Coes  of  Mytilene — 
was  stoned  to  death.  Aristagoras  then  set  sail  for 
Sparta  to  seek  for  aid.  That  state  at  this  time  enjoyed 
the  singular  constitution  of  a  double  monarchy.  This 
may  have  had  some  mythological*connection  with  the 
legend  of  the  twin  sons  of  Leda,  Castor  and  Pollux, 
who  became  sea-gods,  from  whom  the  constellation  of 
the  Gemini  was  named ;  but  Herodotus  assigns  to  it  a 
different  origin. 

His  tradition  is  that  when  the  sons  of  Hercules,  recon¬ 
quered  their  heritage  of  the  Peloponnese,  one  of  their 
three  chiefs,  Aristodcmus,  had  the  kingdom  of  Sparta 


108 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


for  his  share.  His  wife  gave  birth  to  twins  just  before 
his  death.  The  boys  were  much  alike;  and  the  mother, 
hoping  that  they  might  both  be  kings,  protested  that 
she  did  not  know  them  apart.  The  Spartans  were  puz¬ 
zled;  and  the  Delphic  oracle  gave  an  answer  which 
hardly  mended  the  matter,  except  so  far  that  it  satisfied 
the  mother. 

“Let  both  be  kings,  but  let  the  elder  have  more  honor.” 

But  which  was  the  elder?  that  was  the  question.  At 
last  it  was  suggested  that  a  watch  should  be  set  to  see 
which  the  mother  washed  and  fed  first.  If  she  acted 
on  system,  the  case  was  clear.  The  espionage  suc¬ 
ceeded;  the  elder  was  discovered,  and  named  Eurys- 
thenes,  and  the  other  Procles.  The  two  brothers,  when 
they  grew  up,  were  said  to  have  been  always  at  vari¬ 
ance,  and  their  separate  lines  continued  so  ever  after. 
The  two  kings  had  peculiar  duties,  rights,  and  privi¬ 
leges,  but  lived  .in  the  same  plain  way  as  other  citizens. 

When  Aristagoras  arrived  at  Sparta,  he  wTas  admitted 
to  an  audience  with  the  senior  king,  Cleomenes.  He 
showed  him  a  bronze  tablet  engraved  with  a  chart — the 
earliest  know-n  map  of  the  world — pointed  out  where 
all  the  different  nations  lay,  and  conjured  him  to  assist 
his  kinsmen  the  Ioiflans;  observing,  that  it  was  foolish 
for  the  Spartans  to  fritter  away  their  force  in  local 
feuds,  when  they  might  be  lords  of  Asia.  As  for  the 
Persians,  they  were  an  easy  prey — men  who  actually 
“went  into  battle  with  trowsers  on.”  Cleomenes 
promised  to  give  him  an  answer  in  three  days.  At  the 
second  interview  he  asked  “how  far  it  was  to  Susa?” 
Aristagoras  was  unguarded  enough  to  say,  “a  three 
months’  journey;”  on  which  Cleomenes  ordered  him  to 


HERODOTUS . 


109 


quit  Sparta  before  sunset.  Then  he  returned  and  sat 
before  the  king  in  the  sacred  guise  of  a  suppliant,  with 
an  olive-bough  in  his  hand.  A  little  daughter  of  Cle- 
oraenes,  named  Gorgo,  aged  eight  or  nine,  was  standing 
at  her  father’s  side.  The  Milesian  wished  her  to  be  sent 
away,  but  Cleomenes  told  him  to  say  on,  and  not  to 
heed  the  child.  Then  Aristagoras  began  by  offering 
tgn  talents,  and  as  the  king  shook  his  head,  increased 
them  by  degrees  to  fifty.  When  this  sum  was  men¬ 
tioned,  the  child  cried  out:  “Go  away,  father,  or  the 
strange  man  will  be  sure  to  bribe  thee.”*  The  “con¬ 
science  of  the  king”  was  moved.  He  withdrew  to  escape 
the  temptation,  and  the  mission  of  Aristagoras  failed  at 
Sparta. 

At  Athens  he  had  better  chances  of  success.  Athens 
was  in  the  heyday  of  her  first  freedom.  She  had  rid 
herself  of  her  tyrants,  the  Pisistratids,  who  were  at 
this  moment  intriguing  with  Persia,  not  without  suc¬ 
cess,  for  their  restoration.  The  feelings  of  the  citizens 
towards  these  powerful  absentees  and  their  Asiatic 
friends  'were  much  the  same  as  those  of  the  French  of 
1792  towards  the  Emigration  and  its  abettors.  The 
two  great  ruling  families  were  now  the  rival  houses  of 
Alcmgeon  and  Isagoras.  Cleisthenes  the  Alcmaeonid, 
grandson  of  the  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  might  not  have 
thought  it  worth  his  while  to  court  the  people,  had  he 

*  Gorgo  was  well  worthy  to  become,  as  she  afterwards  did, 
the  wife  of  Leonidas.  An  incident  in  her  married  life,  subse¬ 
quently  related  by  Herodotus,  seems  to  militate  against  the 
dictum  of  Aristotle  that  the  Spartan  women  were  inferior  to  the 
men.  All  the  authorities  of  Sparta  were  puzzled  by  the  arrival 
of  a  waxen  tablet  (the  usual  form  of  a  dispatch)  with  nothing 
written  on  it.  When  Gorgo  heard  of  it,  she  at  once  suggested 
that  the  wax  should  be  scraped  off,  and  the  dispatch  was  found 
engraved  on  the  wood. 


110 


THE  ELZEVIR- LIBRARY. 


not  been  determined  to  put  down  the  rival  faction 
which  was  led  by  Isagoras,  brother  of  his  father’s  rival 
Hippocleides,  of  dancing  notoriety.  As  it  was,  he 
brought  about  a  complete  democratic  revolution.  He 
broke  up  the  four  old  tribes,  which  were  bound  by 
family  ties  and  sacred  rites,  and  made  ten  new  geo¬ 
graphical  divisions.  This  was  as  radical  a  change  as 
the  substitution  of  departments  for  provinces  in  France; 
and  the  introduction  of  the  decimal  system,  in  nearly 
every  department  of  state  at  Athens,  anticipated  by 
more  than  two  thousand  years  the  work  of  the  French 
Revolution.  The  Isagorids  for  a  time  turned  the 
tables  on  the  Alcmseonids,  by  calling  in  the  assistance 
of  the  Spartans,  and  Cleistlienes  had  only  just  defeated 
a  dangerous  confederacy  against  Athens.  The  Spartans 
had  invaded  Attica  from  Megara,  when  the  Boeotians 
and  Chalcidians  broke  in  upon  their  northern  frontier. 
But  the  usual  jealousy  between  the  two  Spartan  kings, 
and  the  defection  of  their  Corinthian  allies,  dissolved 
the  Spartan  army,  and  left  the  Athenians  at  leisure 
to  deal  with  their  other  enemies.  They  defeated 
the  Boeotians  with  great  slaughter,  taking  seven  hun¬ 
dred  prisoners;  and  crossing  on  the  same  day  to  Euboea, 
there  obtained  a  second  victory  over  the  Chalcidians,  in 
whose  lands  they  afterwards  planted  a  military  colony. 
The  prisoners  were  ransomed,  but  their  chains  still 
hung  in  the  citadel  at  Athens  in  the  time  of  Herodotus 
on  the  walls  blackened  with  Persian  fire,  and  a  hand¬ 
some  bronze  quadriga  stood  by  the  gateway,  which  had 
been  offered  to  Minerva  from  the  tithe  of  the  ransom. 
Its  inscription  was  to  this  effect: 

“Armies  of  nations  twain,  Bceotia  banded  with  Cbalcis, 

Sons  of  Athenian  sires  quelled  in  the  labor  of  war, 

Slaking  their  ardent  pride  in  a  dismal  fetter  of  iron — 

Then  to  the  Maid  for  tithe  gayewe  the  chariot  and-four.” 


HERODOTUS. 


Ill 


The  energy  of  Athens  at  this  time  struck  Herodotus 
forcibly.  It  was  like  that  of  the  French  Jacobins  when 
they  had  enemies  on  every  frontier,  and  the  Vendee 
and  the  Federals  of  the  South  on  their  hands  besides. 
Great  political  changes  give  a  nation  a  present  sense  of 
life  and  happiness,  which  is  too  often  ultimately  wreck¬ 
ed  by  selfishness,  but  which  seems  for  a  time  to  inspire 
superhuman  strength.  The  worsted  Thebans  stirred  up 
the  little  island  of  iEgina,  which  was  always  a  thorn  in 
the  side  of  Athens  till  she  had  become  mistress  of  the 
sea.  There  was  a  very  old-si anding  feud  about  some 
sacred  images  or  fetishes  of  olive-wood,  representing 
the  goddess  Ceres  and  her  daughter  Persephone.  No 
doubt  their  holiness  was  enhanced  by  their  age  and 
ugliness.  Artistic  beauty  seems  to  have  little  to  do 
with  the  sacredness  of  images,  and  in  modern  times  in 
Italy  an  old  black  Madonna  has  been  an  object  of  pecu¬ 
liar  veneration.  The  Zeus  of  Phidias  and  the  Aphro¬ 
dite  of  Praxiteles  were  not  molded  by  the  hands  of 
Faith. 

The  Athenians  had  just  refused  a  demand  of  the 
Persian  satrap  of  Sardis  for  the  restoration  of  their  ty¬ 
rant  Hippias,  when  Aristagoras  arrived.  They  received 
him  with  open  arms,  not  only  on  account  of  this,  but 
also  because  Miletus  was  their  own  colony;  and  dis¬ 
patched  twenty  slwps — probably  all  they  could  spare 
from  the  iEginetan  war — to  aid  the  Milesians  in  their 
struggle  against  the  yoke  of  Persia.  These  w7ere  joined 
by  five  galleys  from  Eretria  in  Euboea,  that  city  being 
under  an  obligation  to  the  Milesians.  The  crews  left 
their  ships  on  the  shore  near  Ephesus,  and  marched  on 
and  surprised  Sardis,  shutting  up  the  Persians  in  the  cita¬ 
del.  But  Sardis  proved  to  them  a  miniature  Moscow. 
The  town,  mainly  built  of  wood  and  reeds,  caught  fire. 


112 


THE  ELZEVIR  IA  HILARY. 


and  the  buccaneers,  thought  it  best  to  retreat  as  soon  as 
a  sack  became  out  of  the  question.  But  the  Persian 
forces  caught  them  up  near  Ephesus,  and  inflicted  se¬ 
vere  punishment  before  they  could  reach  their  ships. 
The  Ionian  Greeks  were  now  left  to  themselves  by  the 
Athenians,  but  the  insurrection  assumed  large  propor¬ 
tions,  involving  the  whole  Greek  seaboard  of  Asia, 
many  inland  tribes,  and  lastly  spreading  to  the  island  of 
Cyprus. 

When  Darius  heard  of  the  great  revolt,  and  especially 
of  the  burning  of  Sardis,  his  wrath  was  greatly  kindled 
against  the  Athenians.  ,  He  took  a  bow  and  shot 
towards  heaven,  saying,  “  O  Zeus!  grant  that  I  may  be 
avenged  on  the  Athenians!”  He  also  appointed  a  slave 
to  say  to  him  thrice  every  day  during  dinner,  “  O  king! 
remember  the  Athenians.  ”  *  Then  he  sent  for  Histiaeus, 
telling  him  that  he  suspected  he  knew  something  about 
the  business.  But  the  Greek’s  innocent  look  and  plausi¬ 
ble  words  deceived  the  king,  who  was  induced  to  send 
him  to  the  coast — the  very  thing  he  had  desired — to  help 
to  quell  the  insurrection.  At  Sardis'  Histiaeus  found  an 
astuter  head  to  deal  with.  The  satrap  there  was  Arta- 
phernes  the  king’s  brother.  He  said,  “I  see  how  it  is, 
Histiaeus — thou  hast  stitched  the  shoe,  and  Aristagoras 
has  put  it  on.”  But  the  adroit  Ionian  managed  for  the 
time  to  escape  out  of  all  his  difficulties.  He  even  out¬ 
witted  Artaphernes  so  far,  that,  as  Mr.  Grote  supposes, 
he  got  him  to  execute  a  number  of  innocent  Persians  at 
Sardis,  by  opening  a  treasonable  correspondence  with 
them.  The  Milesians,  -however,  would  not  receive  him 

*  There  is  a  parallel  symbolism  in  the  case  of  Elisha  and  Joash 
(2  Kings  xiii.  17):  “Then  Elisha  said,  Shoot;  and  he  shot.  And 
he  said,  The  arrow  of  the  Lord's  deliverance,  and  the  arrow  of 
deliverance  from  Syria.” 


HERODOTUS. 


118 


back  as  governor:  lie  therefore  persuaded  the  Lesbians 
to  give  him  eight  triremes,  with  which  he  took  to  piracy 
on  his  own  account  in  the  parts  about  the  Hellespont. 
While  marauding  on  the  coast  near  Lesbos  he  was  de-, 
feated  by  a  Persian  force  which  happened  to  be  there, 
and  his  captors,  fearing  lest  the  good-natured  Darius 
might  pardon  him,  put  him  to  death  at  Sardis.  Their' 
fears  were  well-founded;  for  when  they  sent  his  head  to 
the  king,  Darius  expressed  much  regret,  and  ordered  it 
to  be  buried  with  all  honor.  This  is  quite  consistent 
with  the  character  of  the  Persian  king  as  drawn  by  the 
prophet  Daniel.  It  seems  as  if  no  one  who  had  once 
done  him  a  service  could  ever  afterwards  forfeit  his  good 
graces. 

After  reducing  Cyprus,  the  Persians  fell  with  their 
combined  force  on  the  Ionians  and  their  allies.  A  vic¬ 
tory  won  by  the  Greek  fleet  over  the  Phoenician  sailors 
of  Darius  had  no  result  of  importance.  The  Carians 
fought  most  valiantly,  and  cut  off.  a  whole  Persian 
division  by  an  ambuscade.  Though  they  lost  in  one 
battle  ten  thousand  men,  yet  their  spirit  was  unbroken. 
Miletus,  too.  still  held  out  gallantly.  If  any  man  under 
these  circumstances  ought  to  have  shown  an  example  of 
self-devotion,  that  man  was  Aristagoras.  But  nerve  is 
inconsistent  with  levity  of  character.  It  often  happens 
that  the  coward  runs  into  the  jaws  of  his  fate,  and  so  it 
happened  to  him.  lie  abandoned  the  Ionian  cause,  and 
with  some  of  his  partisans  sailed  away  for  his  father- 
in-law’s  new  settlement  in  Thrace,  where  he  was  killed 
while  besieging  some  petty  town.  He  had  been  just  in 
time  to  make  his  fruitless  escape,  for  the  Persians  now 
proceeded  to  invest  Miletus  by  land  andsea.  The  allied. 
Greeks  decided  on  leaving  it  to  defend  itself  by  land, 
and  concentrating  their  fleet  at  a  small  island  off  the 


114 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


coast.  The  allies  counted  in  all  three  hundred  and 

fifty  triremes,  which  were  confronted  by  six  hundred 

in  the  service  of  Persia.  The  Persian  commanders 

/ 

first  tried  to  dissolve  the  hostile  confederation  by 
sending  the  deposed  despots  each  to  their  own  country¬ 
men  with  promises  of  pardon  on  submission,  and 
threats  of  extermination  in  case  of  prolonged  resistance. 
The  plan  so  far  failed  that  it  did  not  supersede  the  ne¬ 
cessity  of  an  action,  for  each  separate  state  imagined  it¬ 
self  the  only  one  to  which  overtures  were  made.  The 
Ionian  captains,  in  their  council  of  war,  now  agreed  to 
put  themselves  all  under  the  command  of  Dionysius 
of  Phocsea,  He  set  to  work  to  put  the  ships  in  con¬ 
stant  training,  especially  practicing  a  maneuver  some¬ 
thing  like  that  of  Nelson, — attacking  the  enemy’s 
line  in  columns,  and  cutting  through  it.  The  inven¬ 
tion  of  steam-rams  seems  likely  to  make  the  sea-fights 
of  the  future  more  like  those  of  the  remote  past  than 
ever.  The  incidents  of  the  Merrimac’s  battle  and  of 
Lissa  recall  the  collisions  of  ancient  navies,  only  that 
the  oars  of  the  galleys  are  superseded  by  steam-engines. 
Their  sails  were  not  used  in  action,  as  they  would*  have 
only  embarrassed  the  rowers.  To  sweep  away  a  whole 
broadside  of  oars  b}r  cleverly  shaving  the  enemy,  and 
then  turn  sharply  and  ram  him  home  on  the  quarter, 
was  doubtless  a  favorite  evolution  of  the  best  sailors. 
Dionysius  was  too  much  of  a  martinet  for  the  self-in¬ 
dulgent  Ionians.  He  kept  them  at  sea  all  night — an 
unheard-of  innovation — and  at  drill  all  day,  and  the 
days  were  terribly  hot.  They  had  not  bargained  for 
this  when  they  chose  him  admiral.  They  began  to 
murmur.  “  What  god  have  we  offended  that  we  should 
be  thus  victimized?  What  fools  we  were  to  give  our¬ 
selves  up  body  and  Soul  to  this  Phocsean  bully,  who 


HERODOTUS. 


115 


commands  but  three  ships  of  his  own!  We  shall  fall 
sick  with  the  work  and  heat.  The  Persians  can  but 
make  us  slaves,  and  no  slavery  can  well  be  worse  than 
this.  Let  us  mutiny.”  So  they  landed  and  encamped 
on  the  island,  lolled  in  the  shade  all  day,  and  refused 
to  go  on  board  any  more.  Then  the  Persian  poison 
began  to  work.  iEaces,  the  son  of  Syloson,  lately 
tyrant  of  Samos,  succeeded  in  persuading  his  country¬ 
men  to  promise  to  desert,  and  they  alone  had  sixty 
ships.  Little  could  be  hoped  now  from  a  general  bat¬ 
tle,  but  the  battle  took  place.  The  Samians  went  off, 
all  but  eleven  ships,  whose  staunch  captains,  like  Nel¬ 
son  at  Copenhagen  with  his  blind  eye  to  the  telescope, 
would  not  see  the  signal  of  retreat.  Most  of  the  other 
allied  squadrons,  when  they  saw  what  the  Samians 
were  doing,  imitated  their  bad  example.  The  Chian 
contingent,  with  the  Samian  eleven  and  a  few  others, 
maintained  a  desperate  struggle.  The  hundred  Chian 
ships,  each  with  forty  picked  marines  on  board,  charged 
repeatedly  through  the  enemy’s  line.  When  they  had 
taken  many  of  his  galleys,  and  lost  half  their  own,  such 
as  were  able  made  their  way  to  their  own  island.  Their 
damaged  ships  made  for  MycalS,  where  the  crews  ran 
them  ashore  and  marched  to  Ephesus.  But  ill-fortune 
followed  them.  It  was  night,  and  the  Ephesians  were 
celebrating  a  feast,  whose  chief  ceremony  was  a  torch¬ 
light  procession  of  women.  Thinking  them  a  party 
of  freebooters  come  to  carry  off  their  wives  and 
daughters,  the  citizens  sallied  out  and  cut  them  all  to 
pieces.  Dionysius  the  Phocsean  had  taken  three  ships, 
thus  exactly  doubling  his  own  number.  When  he  saw 
that  the  fight  was  lost,  he  made  straight  for  the  coast 
of  Phoenicia,  left  undefended  by  the  absence  of  their 
war-galleys,  sank  a  number  of  merchantmen  in  the 


116 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


harbors,  and  gained  by  this  booty  the  means  of  setting 
up  handsomely  as  a  corsair  in  Sicily,  where  he  plun¬ 
dered  Carthaginians  and  Tyrrhenians,  but — with  “a re¬ 
finement  of  delicacy  very  unusual,”  as  Mr.  Rawliuson- 
observes — let  all  Greek  vessels  go  free. 

The  fall  of  Miletus  soon  followed  the  sea-fight.  Most 
of  the  men  were  killed,  and  the  women  and  children 
enslaved.  The  Athenians  were  deeply  affected  by  the 
news,  and  when  their. poet  Phryniclius  brought  on  the 
stage  his  tragedy  of  the  “Capture  of  Miletus,”  the 
audience  burst  into  tears,  and  he  was  fined  a  thousand 
drachmas  (francs),  and  forbidden  ever  to  exhibit  it 
again.  The  revolt,  which  had  now  been  desperately 
maintained  for  six  years,  was  terribly  expiated.  The 
towns  on  the  coast  were  as  far  as  possible  depopulated 
(the  people  being  sent  to  the  interior);  and  the  islands 
were  traversed  by  lines  of  soldiers,  who  “netted”  the 
inhabitants  from  one  side  to  the  other.  Cities  and 
temples  were  burnt  to  the  ground.  The  Chians  had 
been  warned  of  coming  evil  by  terrible  portents.  Of  a 
hundred  youths  sent  to  Delphi,  all  but  two  had  died  of 
a  pestilence;  and  just  before  the  great  sea-fight  off 
Miletus,  the  roof  of  a  public  school  had  fallen  on  the 
heads  of  the  children  of  the  principal  citizens,  and  only 
one  had  escaped  out  of  a  hundred  and  twenty.  In  1821 
Europe  was  roused  to  sympathy  for  Greece  by  the  hor¬ 
rors  which  this  very  island  (Scio)  suffered  from  the 
troops  of  the  Capudan  Pasha. 

After  a  time  the  policy  of  the  Persians  changed  to¬ 
wards  Ionia,  probably  because  Darius  disapproved  of 
the  excessive  severity  which  had  been  exercised ;  and 
Mardonius,  his  son-in-law,  a  young  noble  of  great 
promise,  was  sent  to  depose  once  more  the  “tyrants,” 
and  establish  democracies.  These  rulers  had  proved 


HERODOTUS. 


117 


that  they  were  not  to  be  trusted.  Having  settled  this 
business  to  the  king’s  satisfaction,  he  was  appointed  to 
the  command  of  a  fleet  and  army  whose  destination  was 
Athens  and  Eretria — for  Darius  had  never  forgotten 
their  offense  in  the  burning  of  Sardis.  But  the  ulterior 
object  of  the  expedition  was  the  subjugation  of  all 
Greece. 

As  the  Persian  fleet  w7as  doubling  Mount  Atlios, 
a  north  wind  sprang  up  which  terribly  shattered  it. 
Little  short  of  three  hundred  wrecks  and  tw7enty  thou¬ 
sand  corpses  were  cast  away  on  the  rocky  promontory. 
Many  fell  victims,  says  Herodotus,  to  sea-monsters — 
one  of  the  additional  perils  of  the  deep  in  the  imagina¬ 
tion  of  ancient  mariners;  those  w7ho  could  not  swim 
were  drowned — and  those  who  could,  died  of  cold. 
Mardonius  himself  received  a  wound  in  an  action  on 
the  mainland  of  Thrace,  and  the  expedition  returned 
home  with  its  commander  invalided.  Darius  immedi¬ 
ately  made  fresh  preparations,  and  sent  heralds  to  all 
the  Greek  states  to  demand  earth  and  water,  in  order 
that  he  might  know  what  support  to  expect.  It  is  to 
be  hoped  that  the  Athenians  and  Spartans  did  not  dis¬ 
grace  themselves  by  throwing  one  of  the  heralds  into  a 
well  and  the  other  into  a  pit,  and  telling  them  to  fetch 
earth  and  water  thence;  but  such  is  the  story.  Darius 
himself  would  under  no  provocation  have  so  forgotten 
his  knighthood.  Some  years  afterwards,  the  Spartans 
were  said  to  have  sent  two  of  their  citizens,  who 
voluntarily  offered  themselves,  to  Susa,  as  an  atone¬ 
ment  for  this  outrage,  for  which  they  believed  that 
the  wrath  of  the  hero  Talthybius,  the  patron  of 
heralds,  lay  heavy  on  them;  but  Xerxes,  wdio  was  then 
king,  would  not  accept  the  sacrifice,  and  dismissed 
them  unhurt. 


118 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


The  iEginetans  gave  the  earth  and  water  to  Darius, 
probably  to  spite  the  Athenians,  who  at  once  denounced 
them  to  the  Spartans  (who  were  as  yet  considered 
the  leaders  of  Greece)  as  traitors  to  the  national  cause. 
The  Spartan  king  Cleomenes  went  to  iEgina  to  arrest 
the  most  guilty  parties;  but  his  mission  there  was  foiled 
by  his  brother-king  Demaratus,  who  was  accusing  him 
at  home.  In  retaliation,  Cleomenes  attempted  to 
prove  that  Demaratus  was  illegitimate.  His  mother 
was  the  loveliest  woman  in  Sparta.  She  had  been 
ugly  in  her  childhood,  but  was  changed  into  a  beauty 
by  her  nurse  taking  her  daily  to  the  temple  of  Helen. 
There  a  mysterious  lady — “tall  as  the  gods,  and  most 
divinely  fair” — one  day  laid  her  hand  on  the  child, 
whose  looks  from  that  time  forth  began  to  amend.  In 
due  time  she  had  been  married  to  a  noble  Spartan;  but 
Ariston  the  king  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  got  her  from 
her  husband,  who  was  his  greatest  friend,  by  a  ruse. 
He  proposed  to  exchange  their  most  precious  posses¬ 
sions,  and  they  ratified  the  compact  by  an  oath.  Aris¬ 
ton  straightway  demanded  his  friend’s  wife.  Thus 
taken  off  his  guard,  and  bound  by  his  oath,  the  hus¬ 
band  unwillingly  resigned  her.  But  from  circumstances 
connected  with  the  birth  of  the  child  Demaratus,  he 
was  supposed  by  some  to  be  not  the  son  of  Ariston,  but 
of  her  former  husband,  Cleomenes  found  a  powerful 
ally  in  Leotychides,  the  next  heir,  who  was  a  deadly 
enemy  of  Demaratus,  and  the  suit  was  carried  on  in 
his  name.  The  inevitable  oracle  of  Delphi  was  the  last 
court  of  appeal;  and  the  priestess,  being  bribed  by 
Cleomenes,  pronounced  against  Demaratus,  who  was 
then  deposed,  and  ultimately  driven  from  Sparta  by 
the  taunts  of  Leotychides.  He  made  his  way  to  that 
paradise  of  refugees,  the  hospitable  court  of  Darius, 


HERODOTUS. 


119 


who  gave  him  lands  and  cities.  He  had  Itood  very 
high  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen,  as  having 
been  the  only  Spartan  who  had  won  the  four-horse 
chariot-race  at  Olympia. 

When  Cleomenes  had  thus  worked  his  will  on  Dem- 
aratus,  he  took  Leotychides,  his  new  associate  on  the 
throne,  with  him  to  JSgina,  where  he  arrested  two  of 
the  principal  citizens,  as  guilty  of  treason  against  the 
liberty  of  Greece,  and  deposited  them  as  hostages  with 
their  bitter  enemies  the  Athenians.  But  his  own  end 
was  near.  Rumor  accused  him  of  underhand  practices 
against  Demaratus,  and  he  fled  into  Arcadia,  where  he 
began  to  hatch  a  conspiracy  against  Sparta.  The  Spar¬ 
tans  in  alarm  called  him  home  to  his  former  honors. 
He  had  always  been  eccentric;  he  now  became  a  maniac. 
He  would  dash  his  staff  in  the  face  of  every  citizen  he 
met.  At  last  his  friends  put  him  in  the  stocks — a 
wholesome  instrument  of  restraint,  as  common  there  as 
in  our  own  country  within  the  last  century.  Finding 
himself  alone  one  day  with  his  keeper,  he  asked  for  a 
knife.  The  Helot  did  not  dare  to  refuse  the  king, 
though  a  prisoner.  Then  he  committed  suicide  in  a 
manner  which,  though  effected  more  clumsily,  resem¬ 
bled  the  *  Happy  Dispatch,”  of  the  Japanese. 

The  madness  of  Cleomenes,  like  that  of  Cambyses, 
was  generally  supposed  to  have  been  a  judgment  on 
his  impiety.  Herodotus  thought  his  treatment  of 
Demaratus  enough  to  account  for  it;  but  other  charges 
equally  grave  ware  brought  against  him.  He  had 
bribed  the  Pythian  priestess.  He  had  roasted  alive 
some  fifty  Argives  who  had  taken  refuge  in  a  sacred 
grove  during  his  invasion  of  Argolis,  by  burning  the 
grove  itself.  He  had  scourged  Argive  priests  for  not 
allowing  him,  a  foreigner,  to  sacrifice  in  the  temple  of 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


Juno.  H# had  been  in  the  liabit  of  entering  forbidden 
temples,  and  generally  of  making  a  parade  of  reckless 
irreligion.  The  Spartans  themselves,  however,  gave  a 
more  naturalistic  account  of  the  cause  of  his  madness. 
Certain  Scythian  ambassadors,  who  were  staying  at 
Sparta  to  negotiate  a  league  against  Darius,  had  in¬ 
duced  the  king  to  adopt  the  habit  of  taking  his  wine 
without  water  like  themselves.  “To  drink  like  a 
Scythian”  was  a  proverb.  The  case  of  Cambyses,  as 
we  have  seen,  admitted  of  the  like  explanation. 

When  Cleomenes  was  dead,  the  AEginetans  sent  to 
Sparta  to  complain  of  Leotycliides  about  their  hostages, 
who  were  still  in  custody  with  the  Athenians.  Leoty- 
chides,  who  was  not  popular,  narrowly  escaped  being 
given  up  as  a  hostage  in  their  stead;  but,  in  the  end, 
he  was  duly  sent  to  Athens  to  demand  their  release. 
The  Athenians  refused  fo  give  them  up,  saying  that  as 
two  kings  had  placed  them  there,  they  could  not  give 
them  up  to  one.  They  certainly  would  have  had  the 
English  law  of  trusteeship  on  their  side.  Leotycliides, 
however,  read  them  a  striking  lesson  on  the  sacred  ness 
of  trusts.  He  told  them  how  one  Glaucus,  a  Spartan, 
had  once  consulted  the  oracle  at  Delphi  as  to  restoring 
a  deposit  of  money  to  its  rightful  owner.  He  had  the 
audacity  to  ask  whether  he  might  venture  to  purge 
himself  by  an  oath,  according  to  the  Greek  law,  and  so 
keep  the  money.  The  Pythoness  gave  answer  in  these 
warning  words: 

; 

“  O  Glaucus,  gold  is  good  to  win, 

And  a  false  oath  is  easy  sin ; 

Swear— an  thou  wilt:  death  follows  both 
The  righteous  and  unrighteous  oath: 

But  Perjury  breeds  an  awful  Birth, 

That  hath  no  name  in  heaven  or  earth; 


HEllODOTUS. 


121 


Strong  without  hands,  swift  without  feet, 

It  tracks  the  pathway  of  deceit — 

Sweeps  its  whole  household  from  the  land ; 

Only  the  just  man’s  house  shall  stand.” 

When  Grlaucus  heard  these  words,  he  at  once  restored 
the  money,  and  sent  to  beg  of  the  god  that  the  thought 
of  his:  heart  might  be  forgiven  him.  The  oracle  replied 
that  -;to  tempt  heaven  with  such  a  question  was  as  bad 
as  to^’, commit  the  sin.  “And  now,”  said  the  Spartan 
king,  “mark  my  words,  men  of  Athens;  at  this  day 
there  is  none  of  G-laucus’  race  left  in  Sparta;  they  have 
perished,  root  and  branch.” 

The  Athenians,  however,  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
solemn  monition.  In  return  for  their  stubbornness, 
the  iEginetans  laid  wait  for  and  captured  the  sacred 
galley  which  carried  the  Athenian  embassy  to  Delos 
periodically,  and  threw  the  envoys  (men  of  the  highest 
rank)  into  prison.  A  fierce  war  of  reprisals  was  entered 
upon,  of  which  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  character¬ 
istic  is  the  poverty  of  the  Athenians  of  the  period  in 
ships.  They  were  obliged  to  beg  twenty  galleys  of 
their  friends  the  Corinthians,  who,  as  it  was  against 
the  law  to  give  them,  generously  sold  the  whole  for  a 
hundred  drachmae — about  five  francs  apiece. 

Leotycliides  might  have  served  to  point  the  moral  of 
his  own  remarkable  anecdote.  He  reaped  little  happi¬ 
ness  from  the  successful  plot  by  which  he  had.  sup¬ 
planted  Demaratus.  After  seeing  his  only  son  die  be¬ 
fore  him,'  he  ended  his  own  days  in  exile,  having  been 
banished  from  Sparta  for  the  disgraceful  crime  of  taking- 
bribes  from  the  enemy  during  a  war  with  the  Thessa¬ 
lians.  The  evident  satisfaction  with  which  Herodotus, 
here  as  elsewhere,  traces  the  course  of  retributive  jus¬ 
tice,  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  historian. 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MARATHON. 


“The  flying  Mede,  his  shaftless  broken  bowl 
The  fiery  Greek,  his  red  pursuing  spear ! 

Mountains  above,  Earth’s,  Ocean’s  plain  below  1 
Such  was  the  scene.” 

— Byron,  “  Childe  Harold.” 

As  the  first  expedition  against  Greece  under  Mardonius 
had  ended  in  disaster,  Darius  thought  it  best  to  let  the 
young  commander  gain  experience  before  he  was  in¬ 
trusted  with  the  conduct  of  another;  possibly,  also,  his 
wound  was  long  in  healing.  The  second  armada  was 
put  under  the  command  of  Datis,  a  Mede  of  mature 
years,  and  Artaphernes,  nephew  of  the  king.  They 
had  express  orders  to  bring  the  Athenians  and  Eretrians 
into  the  royal  presence  in  chains.  The  whole  flotilla 
— six  hundred  war-ships,  besides  transports — struck 
straight  across  sea,  through  the  Archipelago,  not  caring 
again  to  tempt  the  dangers  of  Atlios.  After  sack¬ 
ing  Naxos,  they  came  to  the  sacred  island  of  Delos, 
the  birthplace  of  the  twin  deities  Apollo  and  Diana. 
Fortunately  for  the  inhabitants,  the  senior  commander 
was  a  Median  ritualist,  not  an  iconoclast  like  Cam- 
byses,  and  the  sacred  island  was  more  than  spared. 
Herodotus  mentions  an  earthquake  as  occurring  soon 
after  this  visit,  and  Thucydides  another;  and  the  story 
of  the  island  having  once  floated  about  at  large,  before 
it  became  fixed,  is  doubtless  connected  with  its  volcanic 
origin.  The  Persian  armament  swept  like  a  blight 
through  the  other  islands,  and  soon  appeared  off  the 


HERODOTUS . 


123 


coast  of  Euboea.  Meeting  with  no  resistance  on  laud¬ 
ing,  they  disembarked  their  cavalry,  and  laid  siege  to 
Eretria,  which  was  betrayed  to  them  after  six  days  of 
severe  fighting.  The  town  was  burnt  and  sacked,  and 
the  inhabitants  carried  away  captive.  They  expected 
from  the  threats  of  Darius  the  worst  of  fates;  but  when 
they  reached  Susa,  that  forgiving  monarch  settled  them 
peaceabty  at  a  place  called  Ardericca,  where  there  was 
a  famous  well  which  produced  salt,  bitumen,  and  petro¬ 
leum.  Herodotus  saw  them  there,  and  mentions  par¬ 
ticularly  that  they  had  not  forgotten  their  Greek. 

The  Athenians,  after  the  fall  of  Eretria,  must  have 
felt  much  as  the  Jews  did  when  Sennacherib  appeared 
before  their  walls,  and  Rabshakeh  boasted  that  all  the 
kings  and  gods  on  his  march  had  fallen  before  him. 
But  when  they  heard  that  the  Persians  had  actually 
disembarked  at  Marathon,  they  must  have  felt  as  Eng¬ 
land  would  have  felt  had  the  news  come  that  Bona¬ 
parte  had  landed  in  Pevensey  Bay,  close  to  the  ominous 
field  of  Hastings.  For  Marathon  had  not  as  yet  become 
a  synonym  for  Victory;  on  the  contrary,  Pisistratus  had 
beaten  the  Athenian  commons  on  that  plain,  and  his 
son  Hippias  was  nowT  with  the  Persian  host  in  a  temper 
which,  they  might  be  sure,  had  not  improved  with  old 
age,  exile,  and  disappointment. 

It  was  Hippias,  wdio,  from  old  association,  and  think¬ 
ing  the  plain  well  suited  for  cavalry  maneuvers,  had 
guided  the  Persians  to  the  strand  of  Marathon  (now 
Vrana).  The  plain  itself  is  shaped  somewhat  like  a 
thin  crescent,  the  sea  washing  its  concavity,  and  mount¬ 
ains  rising  behind  its  convex  rim,  which  opens  out  at 
the  back  into  tw7o  valleys.  Between  both  a  spur  runs 
out,  commanding  the  two  gaps.  The  slope  of  this  spur 
was  the  key  of  the  Athenian  position.  The  extent  of 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


level  ground  is  about  six  miles  long,  as  measured  by  the 
curve  of  the  bay,  and  about  a  mile  and  a  half  broad. 
But  although  along  the  whole  of  the  six  miles  there  is  a 
fine  sandy  beach  for  landing,  behind  it,  a  considerable 
part — more  than  a  third — of  the  crescent-plain  is  occu¬ 
pied  by  two  swamps,  one  of  which  is  of  considerable 
extent.  Here  the  Persian  army  awaited  the  mustering 
of  the  Athenians.  Why  they  did  not  push  on  at  once 
into  the  country  is  a  mystery. 

It  so  chanced  that,  just  before  the  Persians  came,  a 
heaven-sent  commander  dropped,  as  it  were,  from  the 
clouds  into  the  fortunate  city  of  Athens.  The  spirits  of 
men  rose  when  it  was  rumored  that  Miltiades,  the  son 
of  Cimon,  had  come  home.  Herodotus  gives  us  his 
family  history,  which  was  curious  enough. 

The  Chersonese  is  a  tongue  of  land  jutting  into  the 
sea  from  the  Thracian  mainland.  Its  people  being  an¬ 
noyed  by  the  incursions  of  some  savages  to  the  north, 
■as  the  Britons  were  by  the  Piets  and  Scots,  sent  a  depu¬ 
tation  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi  to  ask  for  advice.  The 
god  told  them  to  choose  as  king  the  first  man  who  should 
welcome  them  to  his  house.  For  some  time  they  tra¬ 
versed  almost  hopelessly  various  parts  of  Greece;  but 
Greek  respectability  was  not  likely  to  invite  into  its 
sanctuary  a  party  of  strangers  “dressed  in  outlandish 
garments,  and  carrying  long  spears  in  their  hands.”  At 
last  in  Attica  they  passed  by  the  country-house  of  one 
Miltiades,  son.  of  Cypselus  (a  descendant  of  the  hero  of 
the  ‘  ‘  meal-bin”).*  The  democratic  Tyranny  had  deprived 
him  of  occupation,  for  he  was  a  nobleman  of  the  old 
school,  who  came  of  “a  four-liorse  family,”  says  our 
historian — had  won,  indeed,  the  great  Olympic  race 


*  See  p.  103. 


HERODOTUS. 


125 


himself — who  traced  iiis  pedigree  back  to  Ajax,  and  was 
connected  with  the  proud  Isagorids.  So  he  sat  idle  in 
his  porch,  heartily  sick  of  Pisistratus  and  democratic 
respectability.  Seeing  the  foreign  wayfarers  pass,  out 
of  mere  curiosity,  as  it  would  seem,  he  invited  them 
into  his  house  and  entertained  them.  The  interview 
was  satisfactory ;  Mil tiades  consented  to  take  out  a  few 
colonists  with  them  to  their  wilds,  and  be  their  king. 
The  first  thing  he  did  v7as  to  build  them  a  kind  of  Ha¬ 
drian’s  wall  to  keep  back  their  Piets  and  Scots.  His  nep¬ 
hew,  Stesagoras,  the  son  of  Cimon,  succeeded  him,  and 
was  succeeded,  on  his  violent  death,  by  his  brother,  this 
second  Miltiades,  who  came  out  from  Athens,  and  made 
himself  by  a  coup  d'etat  despot  of  the  whole  Chersonese 
— a  great  sin  in  the  ej^es  of  his  democratic  countrymen, 
who  brought  him  to  trial  for  it  when  he  came  to  Athens, 
but  condoned  it  on  account  of  his  services  to  the  state. 
When  the  Persians  in  their  march  of  vengeance,  after 
the  Ionian  revolt,  came  to  the  Hellespont,  he  ran  the 
gauntlet  of  their  fleet  successfully  with  five  galleys;  but 
he  left  in  their  hands  one  ship,  on  board  of  which  was 
his  son.  As  Miltiades  had  advised  the  king’s  bridge 
over  the  Danube  to  be  destroyed,  his  captors  thought, 
when  they  sent  the  youth  to  Darius,  that  he  would 
punish  the  father  in  his  person;  but,  with  his  usual 
magnanimity,  the  king  gave  him  a  house  and  estate, 
and  a  Persian  wife,  by  whom  he  became  the  founder  of 
a  Persian  family. 

Miltiades,  immediately  on  his  return  to  Athens,  was 
impeached  by  his  democratic  enemies  for  “tyranny”  in 
his  colony;  but,  having  cleared  his  character,  he  wras  at 
once  appointed  one  of  the  ten  Athenian  generals,  of 
whom  Callimachus,  the  polemarcli,  or  minister  of  war, 
was  another.  They  could  not  have  been  much  more 


126 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


than  colonels,  except  on  the  clays  when  they  held  the 
command  in  rotation;  an  arrangement  which,  to  our 
English  notions,  would  be  fatal  to  the  success  of  any 
great  enterprise.  The  Athenians  were  as  fond  of  deci¬ 
mals  as  the  Persians  of  the  number  seven.  A  tradi¬ 
tional  10,000  Athenians  were  engaged  on  the  Greek  side 
at  Marathon.  But  the  Greeks  were  apt  to  underesti¬ 
mate  their  own  numbers  and  exaggerate  those  of  the 
enemy.  Supposing  the  Persian  force  to  amount  in  all 
to  200,000  men,  making  deductions  for  the  guard  of  the 
ships  and  the  absent  cavalry,  they  probably  brought  not 
many  more  than  110,000  into  the  held,  of  whom  30,000 
were  heavy-armed.  The  Athenian  light-armed  must 
also  be  reckoned,  and  if  their  whole  force  is  put  at 
18,000,  with  2000  Platseans,  the  odds  still  leave  abundant 
room  for  Hellenic  self-gioritication.  Before  the  Athe¬ 
nians  left  their  city,  they  had  sent  to  Sparta  for  succor. 
Their  courier  is  said  to  have  reached  Sparta  on  foot — a 
distance  of  140  English  miles — on  the  second  day.  But 
the  Spartans  had  an  inveterate  superstition  against 
marching  until  the  moon  was  full.  They  were  possibly  in 
no  great  hurry  to  help  Athens,  as  when  they  did  come,  it 
was  too  late,  and  only  with  two  thousand  men.  The 
Athenians  had  already  drawn  up  their  line  of  battle  in 
the  sacred  close  of  Hercules,  at  Marathon,  when  they 
were  joined  by  the  Platseans.  The  Platteans  had  suffered 
much  in  time  past  from  their  neighbors  the  Thebans, 
and  in  return  for  substantial  protection  had  bound 
themselves  to  Athens;  in  fact  the  little  State  became  a 
satellite  of  the  greater. 

The  Greek  forces  seem  to  have  occupied  the  space 
between  Mount  Kotroni  and  Argaliki,  resting  their 
wings  against  the  heights,  which  prevented  their  being 
outflanked.  There  was  hesitation  as  to  beginning 

o  o 


HERODOTUS. 


127 


the  attack.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Athenians  rested 
on  their  own  supplies,  and  could  take  their  time;  and 
the  Spartan  contingent,  though  tardy,  might  be  ex¬ 
pected  to  march  in  six  days,  when  the  moon  would  be 
at  the  full.  On  the  other  hand,  treachery  was  feared 
from  the  party  of  Hippias  in  Athens,  if  there  was  any 
delay.  The  generals  were  equally  divided,  but  Mil- 
tiades  was  for  immediate  action,  and  persuaded  Cal¬ 
limachus  to  give  his  casting-vote  with  him.  By  what 
arrangement  it  happened  is  not  clear,  but  it  is  certain 
that  when  the  day  for  action  came,  the  command  was 
in  the  hands  of  Miltiades.  Why  the  attack  was  made 
on  the  particular  day  it  is  difficult  to  determine.  Some 
suppose  that  Miltiades,  with  an  inspiration  like  that  of 
Wellington  at  Salamanca,  saw  his  advantage  in  a  tem¬ 
porary  absence  of  the  Persian  cavalry.  Certain  it  is 
that  no  cavalry  are  heard  of  in  the  action,  which  seems 
singular,  as  Hippias  is  said  to  have  chosen  the  spot  for 
their  benefit.*  The  armies  stood  fronting  each  other. 
Callimachus  was  on  the  right  wing,  and  the  Platseans  on 
the  left.  The  right  was  always  the  post  of  honor  and 
of  danger,  because  the  last  man  had  his  side  unprotected 
by  a  shield.  When  the  Greek  line  was  formed,  it  ap¬ 
peared  too  short  as  compared  with  that  of  the  Persians; 
so  Miltiades,  no  doubt  with  some  misgivings,  drew 
troops  from  his  center  and  massed  them  on  the  wings, 
in  order  that  they  might  deploy  when  they  came  into 
the  open.  There  was  nearly  a  mile  of  ground  to  be 
cleared  before  arriving  at  the  enemy’s  line;  and  it  was 

*  Mr.  Blakesley  thinks  that  they  had  not  yet  been  disembarked, 
but  were  Still  at  Eretria  ;  and  perhaps  it  was  for  this  reason 
that  the  Persians  kept  their  position  close  to  the  shore  for  so 
long  a  time,  and  did  not  attempt  to  outflank  by  the  hills  an 
enemy  numerically  so  inferior. 


128 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


advisable  to  lose  as  few  men  as  possible  from  arrows 
before  coming-  to  the  thrust  of  spears.  Miltiades  there¬ 
fore  gave  the  signal  to  charge  at  quick  step,  which  was 
increased  to  a  run  when  within  range.  The  Persians, 
on  their  side,  prepared  to  give  them  a  warm  reception, 
though  they  thought  the  Greeks  mad  for  charging  so 
wildly,  unsupported  by  archers  or  cavalry.  But  they 
had  scarcely  time  for  admiration  of  their  enemies  before 
they  were  in  upon  them.  The  two  armies  wrestled  long 
and  desperately  before  advantage  declared  itself  for 
either.  At  last  the  swaying  line  of  combat  parted  into 
three  fragments,  which  moved  in  different  directions. 
In  the  center,  where  the  Persians  and  Sacae  were  posted, 
the  Athenians  were  rolled  back,  probably  no  farther 
than  the  slope  of  Kotroni,  where  they  could  stand  at 
bay,  though  Herodotus  says -they  were  pursued  up  the 
valley.  On  the  wings  they  were  victorious;  and  the 
allies  of  the  Persians  who  were  there,  retiring  creditably 
enough,  with  their  faces  to  the  enemy,  did  not  see  the 
marshes  behind  them,  but  floundered  into  them  back¬ 
wards.  There  was  struggling  to  regain  a  footing,  and 
general  confusion,  of  which  the  Greeks  took  advantage, 
and  pressed  them  harder  till  they  were  hopelessly 
broken  and  discomfited.  But  the  victorious  wings  now 
perceived  that  their  own  center  was  dislocated  from 
them,  and  had  lost  ground  before  the  elite  of  the  Per¬ 
sian  army;  they  therefore  faced  about  and  fell  on  their 
flanks.  The  Persian  center,  now  engaged  on  three 
sides,  at  last  gave  way  likewise,  and  fell  back  in  the 
direction  of  their  galleys.  Covered  probably  by  the 
archers  from  the  decks  most  of  the  troops  got  safe  on 
board.  Then  the  Greeks  raised  a  yell  of  disappointment, 
called  for  fire  to  burn  the  ships,  and  many  rushed  into 
the  water  to  try  to  board  them.  One  of  the  foremost 


HERODOTUS. 


129 


of  these  was  Cynegeirus,  brother  to  the  poet  HSschylus; 
but,  as  he  grasped  the  stern-ornament  of  a  trireme,  he 
dropped  hack  with  both  his  hands  chopped  off.  Some 
say  that  he  maintained  his  hold  until  he  lost  first  one 
hand,  then  the  other,  and  lastly  his  head,  as  he  caught 
the  gunwale  witli  his  teeth. 

So  ended  the  immortal  battle  of  Marathon,  which 
stands  almost  alone  by  the  side  of  Morgarten  among 
the  miracles  achieved  by  the  inspiration  of  Freedom. 
The  Persians  were  sufficiently  beaten,  but  tlieir  rout 
could  hardly  have  been  so  complete  as  Herodotus  de¬ 
scribes,  since  they  had  not  far  to  run.  They  lost  six 
thousand  four  hundred  men,  mostly  in  the  swamps,  and 
seven  galleys,  held  back  by  main  force  or  carried  by 
boarding.  It  was  in  the  fight  at  the  ships  that,  besides 
Cynegeirus,  many  Athenians  of  note  fell,  among  them 
two  of  the  generals,  one  of  whom  was  Callimachus.  The 
Athenians  lost  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  men  in  the 
action.  As  the  greater  number  are  said  to  have  fallen 
in  the  attack  on  the  ships,  either  those  who  gave 
way  before  the  Persians  and  Sacce  were  few,  or  they 
only  suffered  a  partial  repulse.  Greek  armies,  from 
their  formation  in  compact  phalanx,  seldom  lost  many 
men  until  they  were  broken,  when  their  long  spears 
and  heavy  armament  rendered  them  more  defenseless 
than  lighter  troops.  Marathon  afterwards  became  a 
household  word  at  Athens,  as  Waterloo  with  us.  A 
“man  who  had  fought  at  Marathon”  had  a  patent  of 
popular  nobility.  Athenian  orators  made  it  a  favorite 
commonplace;  and  Athenian  satirists  found  it  an  in¬ 
exhaustible  fund  of  jest  upon  the  national  vanity.  Won¬ 
derful  stories  were  related  in  connection  with  the  battle. 
On  the  return  of  Pheidippides,  the  courier  from  S*parta, 
he  said  that  as  he  was  crossing  a  mountain  in  Arcadia 


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lie  was  accosted  by  tlie  wood-god  Pan,  who  called  to 
him  by  name,  and  complained  of  liis  worship  being 
neglected  by  the  Athenians,  while  he  was  always  well 
disposed  towards  them.  In  consequence,  a  temple  was 
dedicated  to  Pan  under  the  Acropolis,  and  he  was 
honored  with  annual  sacrifices  and  a  torch-race. 
National  heroes  were  supposed  to  have  been  present, 
and  to  have  assisted  in  the  fight;  and  one  Athenian 
was  suddenly  struck  blind  in  the  thick  of  the  fray  by 
(as  he  declared)  the  passing  before  his  eyes  of  a  super¬ 
natural  giant,  who  slew  the  man  at  his  side. 

When  the  Persians  had  re-embarked,  their  fleet 
doubled  Cape  Sunium,  and  made  a  demonstration  in 
the  direction  of  the  harbor  of  Athens,  with  the  hope 
of  surprising  the  citj^;  but  the  Athenians  returned  in 
time  to  cover  it.  There  was  an  ugly  rumor,  which 
Herodotus  entirely  disbelieves,  that  a  shield  was  hoisted 
on  the  walls  as  a  telegraphic  signal  by  the  Alcmseonids. 
This,  doubtless,  emanated  from  the  opposite  faction; 
for  the  Isagorids  and  Alcmgeonids  of  Athens  hated 
each  other  as  cordially,  and  slandered  each  other  as 
unscrupulously,  as  the  English  Tories  and  Whigs  of 
the  time  of  Queen  Anne. 

The  tale  of  the  subsequent  fate  of  Miltiades  is  one 
of  the  most  painful  passages  in  history.  In  the  first 
flush  of  his  popularity  he  asked  the  Athenians  to  give 
him  seventy  ships  fully  equipped,  only  deigning  to 
tell  them  that  he  would  get  them  gold  in  abundance. 
They  asked  no  questions,  but  gave  him  the  fleet.  He 
had  a  private  grudge  against  the  people  of  Paros,  and 
he  now  sailed  to  the  island  of  marble,  and  laid  siege  to 
its  town.  His  patience  began  to  be  at  an  end,  when 
a  certain  priestess  offered  to  forward  his  views.  In 
leaping  the  wall  of  the  sacred  precincts  after  an  in- 


HERODOTUS. 


131 


terview  with  her  he  dislocated  his  thigh.  He  then 
returned  to  Athens  disabled,  and  as  soon  as  he  arrived 
was  put  upon  his  trial  on  the  capital  charge  of  having 
deceived  the  state,  his  accuser  being  Xanthippus, 
father  of  the  great  Pericles.  The  crippled  hero  lay 
on  a  couch  in  court  while  his  friends  defended  him. 
They  could  not  say  a  wTord  in  extenuation  of  the 
Parian  escapade,  but  rested  his  defense  on  the  fact 
that  he  had  saved  Athens  at  Marathon,  and  regained 
Lemnos.  But,  unfortunately  for  Miltiades,  this  was 
not  the  first  time  that  he  had  had  to  appear  on  a  charge 
of  like  nature.  It  seemed  as  if  he  wished  to  make 
himself  despot  of  Paros — perhaps  even  despot  of 
Athens — as  he  had  made  himself  despot  of  the  Cher¬ 
sonese.  It  was  not  for  this  that  they  had  got  rid  of 
Hippias.  If  he  commanded  well  at  Marathon,  so  did 
the  other  generals,  two  of  them  now  no  more;  nay, 
every  man  who  fought  in  those  ranks  seemed  as  good  a 
hero  as  he,  for  Marathon,  like  Inkermann,  was  a  “sol¬ 
dier’s  battle.”  If  betook  Lemnos,  he  had  missed  taking 
Paros,  and  wasted  the  public  money  at  a  time  wThen  the 
treasury  was  low.  They  had  not  the  heart  to  condemn 
him  to  death,  for  as  he  lay  before  them  he  seemed  to 
bear  death’s  mark  already— and,  indeed,  it  must  have 
appeared  to  them  as  impossible  as  for  the  king  of  Italy 
to  punish  Garibaldi  for  treason  after  his  wound  at 
Aspromonte;  but  they  condemned  him  in  the  expenses 
of  the  abortive  expedition,  amounting  to  fifty  talents 
(above  £12,000).  As  his  son  Cimon  was  able  to  pay 
these  heavy  damages,  his  judges  seem  to  have  had  no 
intention  of  absolutely  ruining  him.  Soon  afterwards 
physical  mortification  in  the  injured  limb,  assisted  no 
doubt  by  mental,  put  an  untimely  end  to  the  days  of 
the  Man  of  Marathon. 


182 


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CHAPTER  X. 

TIIERMOPY  L  M 

“  Singing  of  men  that  in  battle  array, 

Ready  in  heart  and  ready  in  hand. 

March  with  banner,  and  bugle,  and  fife, 

To  the  death,  for  their  native  land.” 

0  —Tennyson,  “  Maud.” 

After  tlie  terrible  defeat  of  his  best  generals  at  Mara¬ 
thon,  Darius  thought  the  Athenians  worth  his  personal 
attention.  That  battle  took  place  in  the  autumn  of 
33. c.  490;  and  the  king  occupied  the  next  three  years 
in  preparations  for  a  new  expedition,  which  he  in¬ 
tended  to  lead  in  person.  But  a  revolt  in  Egypt  divided 
his  attention;  and  he  was  considering  in  which  direc¬ 
tion  he  was  most  wanted,  when  he  was  summoned 
from  the  scene  by  a  mightier  monarch  than  himself, 
after  a  reign  of  six  and- thirty  years.  His  fourth  son, 
Xerxes,  succeeded  him — not  his  first-born,  Arlabazanes; 
because  Xerxes  had  been  born  in  the  purple,  and  of  a 
daughter  of  Cyrus;  whereas  the  elder  sons  had  been 
born  when  Darius  was  a  subject,  and  of  the  daughter 
of  a  subject.  Xerxes  soon  disposed  of  the  Egyptian 
revolt,  and  left  his  brother  Achsemenes  satrap  of  the 
country.  Then  he  took  up  the  great  quarrel  bequeathed 
him  by  his  father,  but,  after  many  hesitations  and 
vacillations,  signified  in  the  narrative  of  Herodotus  by 
dreams  and  their  interpretations,  and  opposite  opinions 
said  to  have  been  given  by  Artabanus,  who  dissuaded, 
and  Mardonius,  who  was  in  favor  of  an  invasion.  The 


HERODOTUS. 


133 


young  king  was  evidently  afraid  of  compromising  Lis 
newly-inlierited  prosperity.  He  was  of  a  luxurious 
character,  not  craving,  like  Darius,  for  barren  honor; 
and  if  he  left  the  Greeks  alone,  it  would  be  a  long  time 
before  they  found  their  way  to  Susa.  When  the  bolder 
counsels  at  last  prevailed,  he  resolved  to  make  matters 
as  safe  as  possible.  Grecian  liberty  was  not  to  be 
stabbed,  but  stifled,  to  death.  He  would  pour  out  all 
Asia  upon  it.  So  he  took  four  good  years  in  prepara¬ 
tion,  gathering  a  host  of  armed,  half-armed,  and  al¬ 
most  unarmed  men,  such  as  has  hardly  been  seen  be¬ 
fore  or  since.  The  soldiers,  with  the  exception  of  the 
select  few,  carried  the  rudest  national  weapons — bows 
and  arrows,  poleaxes,  “morning-stars,”  even  staves 
and  lassos.  Some  rate  the  host  as  high  as  five  millions; 
others  give  less  than  half  that  number.  The  men  were 
measured,  like  drygoods — not  counted;  that  is,  a  pen 
was  made  which  could  hold  ten  thousand,  through 
which  the  whole  army  passed  in  successive  batches.  It 
is  time,  perhaps,  that  a  common  error  should  be  ex¬ 
ploded,  into  which,  however,  it  would  be  impossible 
for  any  attentive  reader  of  Herodotus  to  fall.  No 
schoolboy  believes  now,  as  elderly  men  did  when  they 
were  boys,  that  the  French  are  a  nation  of  cowards. 
But  it  is  possible  for  careless  readers  of  Greek  history 
to  believe  that  the  Persians  were  cowards;  else,  the}r 
might  sa}*-,  how  should  they  have  been  beaten  by  so. 
small  a  number  of  Greeks?  And  were  they  not  obliged 
to  flog  their  soldiers  into  action?  Perhaps  this  was 
only  a  Greek  version  of  the  fact  that  corporeal  punish¬ 
ment  was  an  institution  in  their  army.  Among  the 
Greeks  it  was  confined  to  slaves.  The  lash  has  not 
prevented  Russians  and  Austrians — not  to  mention 
others — from  fighting  well.  Perhaps  the  native  Per- 


134 


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sians,  especially  those  of  noble  birth,  were  personally 
braver  than  the  Greeks.  But  the  Greeks  had  the  im 
mease  advantage  of  discipline.  In  a  disciplined  army 
every  man  has  the  eyes  of  his  comrades  on  him,  and  if 
fear  is  felt,  it  cannot  act  for  very  shame,  and  because 
it  is  counteracted  by  mechanical  obedience.  Aristotle 
assigns  a  special  kind  of  courage  to  national  militias, 
which  all  Greek  armies  were,  which  he  calls  the  politi¬ 
cal  courage,  springing  from  the  feeling  of  what  is  due 
from  the  individual  to  the  community.  This  may  not 
be  courage  of  the  most  romantic  kind,  but  it  appears  to 
answer  its  end  perfectly; .and  Nelson  thought  it  good 
enough  to  appeal  to  in  his  famous  watchword,  still 
written  round  the  wheel  of  our  war-ships — “England 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty.”  This  kind  of  cour¬ 
age  culminated  in  Leonidas.  The  Persian  officers  were 
even  desperately  brave,  and  always  led  the  charges  in 
person,  which  accounts  for  their  great  relative  loss  in 
battles.  The  Greek  officers  took  their  chance  with  the 
rest,  being  indistinguishable  from  the  privates  in  the 
phalanx.  Again,  the  number  of  their  armies  were  a 
positive  disadvantage  to  the  Persians;  for  most  of  their 
auxiliary  troops,  when  brought  into  contact  with  real 
soldiers,  were  as  sheep  brought  to  the  shambles.  The 
Greeks  were  also  more  efficiently  armed.  The  Persian 
infantry  were  archers,  carrying  also  pikes  and  daggers, 
who  (like  the  English  crossbow-man  with  his  pavoise- 
bearer  in  the  fifteenth  century)  made  a  bulwark  of  their 
great  oblong  wicker  shields,  as  may  be  seen  now  in  the 
Nimrud  sculptures,  and  shot  from  behind  them.  But 
when  this  bulwark  was  once  forced  the  Persians  had  no 
protection  but  their  light  armor  against  the  strong  pikes 
of  the  Greeks.  Our  archers  turned  the  scale  of  battle 
against  superior  forces  at  Cressy  and  Poitiers,  because 


HERODOTUS . 


135 


they  were  Hie  only  body  which  had  at  all  the  character 
of  regular  troops. 

The  Persian  officers  had  in  some  respects  become 
luxurious  and  effeminate  even  in  the  time  of  Darius, 
riding  in  palanquins,  keeping  sumpter-camels,  and  so 
forth;  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  worse  than 
our  Anglo-Indians,  who  have  never  been  reckoned  defi¬ 
cient  in  valor.  The  French  mousquetaires,  who  fought 
under  Marshal  Saxe,  were  as  celebrated  for  their  fop¬ 
pery  as  their  gallantry  in  the  field.  “Hold  hard — the 
dandies  are  coming!”  was  the  word  passed  from  one 
British  soldier  to  another  when  their  laced  coats  and 
three-cornered  hats  came  in  sight. 

There  is  no  need  to  follow  in  detail  all  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  the  slow  march  of  Xerxes  into  Greece. 
The  vast  army  crossed  from  Abydos  to  Sestos  by  a 
double  pontoon  bridge;  and  Xerxes,  like  the  spoiled 
child  of  the  harem,  is  said  to  have  ordered  the  Helles¬ 
pont  to  be  scourged,  and  chains  to  be  thrown  into  it, 
and  branding-irons  to  be  plunged  into  the  hissing  water, 
because  a  storm  had  destroyed  the  work  when  first  at¬ 
tempted.  He  is  also  said  to  have  cut  in  halves  the 
eldest  son  of  a  wealthy  Lydian,  who  had  made  him  an 
offer  of  all  his  property,  but  requested  that  one  of  his 
sons  might  be  left  behind;  making  his  troops  defile 
between  the  severed  portions,  by  way  of  raising  their 
enthusiasm.  A  similar  story  is  told  of  Darius,  which 
appears,  in  his  case,  incredible.  The  great  interest  of 
the  expedition  begins  when  it  arrived  where  resistance 
might  be  expected  from  the  Greeks.  The  land-force 
which  marched  round  the  coast  was  accompanied  by 
more  than  twelve  hundred  war-galleys,  besides  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  other  craft.  The  navy  passed  through  a  new- 
made  ship  canal,  by  which  the  voyage  round  the  for- 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


186 


inidable  headland  of  Atlios  was  avoided.  Our  author 
says  the  work  was  done  in  mere  bravado,  since  the 
ships  might  have  been  drawn  across  the.  narrow  neck 
of  land  with  less  labor  and  cost.  It  is  remarkable,  in 
the  cutting  of  this  canal  (a  work  of  three  years,  the 
traces  of  which  arc  still  distinctly  visible),  that  all 
the  other  nations  were  senseless  enough  to  make  its 
sides  perpendicular,  which,  from  the  continual  land¬ 
slips,  gave  them  double  trouble;  while  the  Phoenicians 
alone  proved  themselves  as  good  “navvies”  as  naviga¬ 
tors,  by  making  their  cutting  twice  as  broad  at  top  as 
at  bottom. 

The  news  of  the  approach  of  this  overwhelming 
host  struck  the  Greeks  with  consternation,  and  all  the 
northern  tribes,  including  the  Thebans,  submitted  to 
the  invader.  The  Athenians  were  alarmed  by  dark 
oracles  pointing  apparently  to  their  extermination,  but 
containing  one  saving  clause,  that  they  might  find  safe¬ 
ty  in  their  “  wooden  walls.”  They  wisely  interpreted 
this  to  mean  their  ships.  Their  troublesome  war  with 
the  ASginetans  proved  now  an  advantage,  as  it  had 
forced  them  to  make  large  additions  to  their  navy,  the 
former  poverty  of  which  has  been  mentioned.  Envoys 
were  sent  for  aid  to  Argos,  Sicily,  Corcyra,  and  Crete. 
The  Argives  might  be  well  excused  for  declining,  as  Cle- 
omenes  had  just  massacred  six  thousand  out  of  their  not 
probably  more  than  ten  thousand  citizens.  Gelon,  the 
king  of  Syracuse,  would  have  assisted,  had  not  Sicily 
been  just  then  invaded  by  a  miscellaneous  army  of 
three  hundred  thousand  men  under  the  command  of  the 
Carthaginian  Hamilcar,  possibly  induced,  through  the 
Phoenicians,  to  make  this  diversion  in  favor  of  Xerxes. 
Gelon  had  the  good  fortune  to  destroy  this  host  in  the 
decisive  battle  of  Himera,  on  the  same  day  as  the  Greek 


HERODOTUS. 


137 


victory  at  Salamis.  The  Corcyrseans  temporized,  with 
their  historical  selfishness;  the  Cretans  excused  them¬ 
selves  on  the  faith  of  an  oracle;  so  the  Greeks  proper 
were  left  to  face  their  terrible  enemy  alone,  and  even 
among  them  there  were  many  craven  spirits  who  took 
the  side  of  the  Persians. 

Thessaly,  through  wliioh  the  course  of  the  invaders 
lay,  is  a  basin  of  mountains,  like  Bohemia,  cracked  by 
the  gorge  of  the  Peneus,  as  Bohemia  is  b}T  that  of  the 
Elbe.  This  basin  was  doubtless,  as  Herodotus  says, 
once  a  lake,  until  it  was  tapped  b}r  some  convulsion  of 
nature.  Xerxes  thought  flooding  the  country  quite 
feasible,  by  damming  up  the  outlet  of  the  river  :  no  such 
measure,  however,  was  necessary.  At  first  the  Greeks 
had  intended  to  make  their  stand  there,  in  the  Yale  of 
Tempe,  celebrated  for  its  beauty.  Overhung  by  plane- 
woods,  the  high  cliffs  are  festooned  with  creepers,  and 
diversified  with  underwood,  approaching  here  and  there 
so  closely  as  to  leave  barely  room  for  the  road  and 
river.  But  they  gave  up  this  position  when  they  found 
that  Thessaly  could  easily  be  entered  by  another  road 
over  the  mountains.  The}r  drew  back  towards  the 
isthmus;  and  Thessaly  at  once  made  terms  with  the 
Persian  king. 

It  was  now  decided  to  make  the  first  stand  at  the 
narrow  pass  of  Thermopylae  (IIotwells-Gate),  the  key 
of  Greece  itself.  The  river  Spercheius  has  since  estab¬ 
lished  a  tract  of  alluvial  deposit  between  the  mountain 
and  the  sea,  but  the  hot  springs  are  still  there,  in  pools 
of  clear  water,  and  the  other  features  of  the  scene  re¬ 
main  much  as  they  were  in  the  time  of  Herodotus. 
The  pass  leads  along  the  shore  from  Thessaly  to  Locris. 
The  Grecian  fleet  were  to  support  the  army  in  the  nar¬ 
row  strait  by  Artemisium,  on  the  head  of  Euboea  (Neg- 


138 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


ropont).  As  the  Persian  host  rolled  on,  it  had  increased 
like  a  snowball,  imbibing  the  contingents  of  all  the 
districts  that  submitted.  But  the  elements  were  still 
against  the  invaders.  A  storm  arose  when  their  fleet 
was  off  Magnesia,  attributed  by  the  Athenians  to  the 
intervention  of  Boreas  (the  North  Wind),  who  had  mar¬ 
ried  a  daughter  of  their  mythical  king  Ereclitlieus.  At 
least  four  hundred  galleys  perished',  and  so  much  wealth 
was  cast  ashore  that  the  wreckers  on  the  coast  became 
rich  men;  and  the  Persians  soon  after  lost  fifteen  ships 
more,  which  mistook  the  enemy’s  fleet  for  their  own. 
Xerxes  was  himself  with  the  land-force  which  had  now 
occupied  the  territory  of  Tracliis,  north  of  the  pass  of 
Thermopylae.  The  little  Greek  army  had  posted  itself 
behind  an  ancient  wall,  which  barred  the  pass,  and 
which  they  had  repaired,  at  a  spot  where  there  was  only 
room  for  a  single  cliariot-road.  The  nucleus  of  the 
force  (in  all  under  8000  of  all  arms)  was  three  hundred 
thorough-bred  Spartans,  each  attended  by  his  seven 
Helots.  They  were  all  fathers  of  families,  who  had  left 
sons  at  home  to  succeed  them.  At  their  head  was 
Leonidas,  now  senior  king  of  Sparta.  This  small  force 
was  expected  to  be  able  to  hold  the  pass  until  the  rest 
were  disengaged;  for  the  Spartans  were  keeping  a  local 
feast,  and  the  other  Greeks  were  engaged  at  the  great 
Olympian  festival.  Perhaps  the  very  extremity  of  the 
danger  made  the  Greeks  put  their  religious  duties  in  the 
foreground;  and,  indeed,  Leonidas  and  his  men  went 
out  as  to  an  expected  sacrifice.  A  Persian  scout  re¬ 
ported  to  Xerxes  that  he  found  the  Spartans  busy  dress¬ 
ing  their  hair.  In  surprise  the  king  appealed  for  expla¬ 
nation  to  his  refugee  guest  Demaratus,  the  banished 
king  of  Sparta,  whom  he  had  brought  to  Greece  in  his 
train.  The  Spartan  warned  him  that  it  betokened,  on 


HERODOTUS ; 


139 


the  part  of  his  countrymen,  a  resistance  to  the  death. 
Usually  careless  of  their  dress,  there  was  one  occasion 
when  they  polished  their  arms,  combed  their  long  liair 
and  wreathed  it  with  flowers,  and  put  on  scarlet  vests: 
it  was  when  they  expected  a  battle  which  they  might 
not  survive.  Xerxes  waited  four  days  to  see  if  they 
would  retire,  and  then  ordered  his  Medes  and  Cissians 
to  bring  them  to  him  in  chains.  For  a  whole  day  these 
made  repeated  attacks,  and  were  as  often  repulsed  with 
heavy  loss.  The  Persian  “Immortals”  were  then 
launched  at  them,  and  fared  no  better.  These  troops 
were  so  called  because  they  were  always  kept  up  to  the 
exact  number  of  ten  thousand,  *  and  represented  the 
Imperial  Guard.  Often  pretending  flight,  so  as  to  draw 
them  on  in  loose  pursuit,  the  Greeks  turned  on  their 
enemies  and  butchered  them.  One  would  have  thought 
that  this  affair  in  the  front  wrould  have  made  little  im¬ 
pression  on  that  dense  host;  but  Xerxes  is  said  to  have 
leaped  thrice  from  his  throne  as  the  wave  of  disturbance 
reached  him,  fearing  for  his  whole  army.  On  the  third 
day  a  native  guide  came  and  told  the  king  of  a  pass  over 
the  mountains,  by  which  the  Greeks  might  be  taken  in 
rear,  and  he  selected  Hydarnes,  the  commander  of  the 
Immortals,  for  this  important  service.  The  crest  of 
this  pass  (the  existence  of  which  the  Greeks  had  learned 
too  late)  wTas  watched  on  their  behalf  by  a  thousand 
Phociaus,  who  were  warned  by  hearing  the  rustling  of 
the  dry  leaves  of  the  oak-wood,  but  thinking  an  attack 
on  their  own  post  was  intended,  retired  to  a  more  de¬ 
fensible  position,  and  let  Hydarnes  pass  on.  The  way 
in  which  the  little  band  of  heroes  received  the  an- 


*  The  forty  members  of  the  French  Academy  are  so  nick¬ 
named  for  the  same  reason. 


140 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


nouncement  that  their  position  had  been  turned  should 
be  told  in  Herodotus’s  own  words: 

•‘First,  the  soothsayer,  Megistias,  as  he  inspected  the 
sacrifices,  warned  them  of  the  death  which  awaited 
them  with  the  morrow’s  dawn.  Then  came  some  de¬ 
serters,  who  told  them  of  the  march  of  the  Persians 
round  the  hill.  All  this  was  while  it  was  still  night. 
Then,  when  the  day  had  broken,  their  scouts  came  run¬ 
ning  down  from  the  heights  with  the  same  news.  There¬ 
upon  the  Greeks  took  counsel,  and  their  opinions  were 
divided;  for  some  would  not  hear  of  quitting  their  post, 
while  others  advised  to  do  so.  Then  they  parted  asun¬ 
der,  aud  some  went  off  and  dispersed  each  to  their  own 
cities,  and  some  prepared  to  remain  there  with  Leoni¬ 
das.  It  is  even  said  that  Leonidas  himself  sent  them 
away,  anxious  that  they  should  not  be  slain;  but  for 
himself  and  the  Spartans  who  were  there,  it  was  not 
seemly,  he  said,  for  them  to  leave  a  post  which  they  had 
once  undertaken  to  keep.” 

Those  who  chose  the  nobler  alternative,  besides  the 
Spartans  and  their  Laconian  subjects  and  Helot  slaves, 
who  could  not  help  themselves,  were  seven  hundred 
Thespians  and  four  hundred  Thebans — the  latter,  our 
author  says,  detained  as  hostages,  but  probably  pro¬ 
scribed  at  home  for  refusing  to  submit,  like  the  rest,  to 
Xerxes.  The  struggle  now  could  have  but  one  issue. 
Xerxes  ordered  a  general  attack  at  daybreak,  and  Leon¬ 
idas,  in  order  to  sell  the  lives  of  his  men  as  dearly  as 
possible,  ordered  them  to  advance  from  the  defile  itself, 
and  attack  in  the  open.  The  Persians  perished  in 
crowds — some  driven  into  the  sea,  some  trampled  to 
death  by  their  comrades,  others  urged  forward  by  stripes 
only  to  fall  on  the  deadly  lances  of  the  Greeks. 

Dead  weight,  however,  began  to  tell  against  the  latter, 


HERODOTUS. 


141 


when  they  had  broken  their  spears  in  barbarian  bodies, 
and  had  used  their  swords  till  they  were  weary.  At 
last  Leonidas  fell,  and  over  his  body  the  struggle  was 
renewed  more  furiously  than  ever. 

“  The  dead  around  him  on  that  day 
In  a  semicircle  lay.” 

In  that  swathe  of  corpses  were  found  two  brothers  of 
Xerxes.  Four  times  the  Greeks  repulsed  the  enemt*, 
and  at  last  bore  off  the  bod}r  of  their  king.  They  had 
but  short  breathing-space.  Their  hour  was  come  when 
the  fatal  troops  of  Hydarnes  came  down  the  hills  in 
their  rear.  The  survivors  drew  back  into  the  narrowest 
part  of  the  pass,  within  the  wall,  and  posted  themselves 
on  a  hillock,  where  a  stone  lion  afterwards  marked  the 
resting-place  of  Leonidas.  So  did  the  survivors  of  the 
Khyber  Pass  massacre  in  1841  draw  together  for  a  last 
stand  on  the  hillock  at  Gundamuck,  whence  a  single 
officer  escaped  to  Pesliawur  to  tell  that  the  British  army 
was  exterminated. 

Tiie  four  hundred  Thebans  saved  themselves  by  a 
timely  surrender;  the  remaining  four  thousand  Greeks 
were  buried  in  a  liail-shower  of  missiles.  Herodotus 
awards  the  palm  of  valor  to  a  Spartan  wit,  who,  when 
he  was  told  that  the  Persian  arrows  would  darken  the 
air,  said:  “  Then  we  shall  have  but  a  sliadowdight”  (or 
sham-fight).  Such  a  man  would  have  appreciated  the 
ghastly  witticisms  of  the  guillotine  in  the  French  Revo¬ 
lution.  Xerxes,  with  an  indecency  towards  the  dead 
quite  opposed  to  all  Persian  usage,  had  the  head  of 
Leonidas  cut  off  and  fixed  upon  a  pole. 

The  Greek  combined  fleet  was  commanded  by  the 
Spartan  Eurybiades.  The  Spartans  would  only  co- 


142 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


operate  on  condition  that  the  command  should  be 
theirs,  though  they  only  furnished  ten  ships,  while  the 
Athenians  mustered  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven. 
Spartan  provincialism  forms  a  strong  contrast  to  the 
national  patriotism  of  the  little  state  of  Platsea,  which 
threw  itself  heart  and  soul  into  the  cause  of  Greek  in¬ 
dependence.  Though  landsmen,  the  Platseans  helped 
to  man  the  Athenian  fleet.  They  were  afterwards  re¬ 
warded  by  vile  ingratitude  from  Sparta,  and  lukewarm 
friendship  from  Athens. 

The  whole  naval  strength  counted  two  hundred  and 
seventy-one  tliree-banked  galleys.  The  Persian  disaster 
in  the  storm  had  now  been  balanced  by  a  Greek  dis¬ 
aster  in  the  field;  and  the  barometer  of  Hellenic  confi¬ 
dence  fell  again.  There  was  even  talk  of  leaving  Euboea 
to  its  fate,  and  retreating  southwards.  Tliemistocles, 
the  Athenian  commander,  wras  a  man  who  had  raised 
himself  to  a  foremost  position  from  small  beginnings, 
which  may  account  for  his  understanding  so  well  the 
use  and  power  of  money.  If  Mammon  was  one  of  his 
gods,  he  could  make  him  his  servant  for  good  as  well  as 
for  evil.  The  Euboeans,  alarmed  for  their  families  and 
goods,  besought  the  Spartan  admiral  not  to  desert  them; 
and  finding  him  impracticable,  applied  to  Tliemistocles 
— this  time  backing  their  prayers  with  a  present  of 
| thirty  talents.  Tliemistocles  knew  Eurybiades  better 
than  they,  and  gave  him  five  talents  out  of  the  thirty, 
as  if  they  had  come  from  himself,  or  from  the  treasury 
of  the  Athenians,  and  three  more  to  Adeimantus  the 
Corinthian,  whose  valor,  among  all  the  national  com¬ 
manders,  seemed  most  strongly  tempered  with  discre¬ 
tion.  The  rest  of  this  secret-service  money  he  kept  for 
himself. 

The  Persians,  in  great  fear  lest  the  Greek  fleet  should 


HERODOTUS. 


143 


escape  them  under  cover  of  night,  detached  two  hun¬ 
dred  ships,  with  orders  to  sail  round  outside  Euboea, 
and  back  up  the  strait  between  the  island  and  the  main¬ 
land,  and  so  block  in  the  enemy. 

The  battle — or  rather  battles,  for  there  were  three — 
of  Artemisium  began  by  desultory  and  provocative  at¬ 
tacks  on  the  part  #of  the  Greeks,  who,  when  they  had 
brought  the  whole  Persian  fleet  upon  them,  rolled  theirs 
up  like  a  hedgehog  or  porcupine,  with  the  spines  out¬ 
side.  They  drew  their  sterns  all  together,  and  formed 
a  circle  with  their  sharp  beaks  turned  every  way.  In 
the  first  vielee  thirty  ships  were  taken  from  the  Persians. 
The  battle  lasted  through  the  midsummer  evening,  and 
then  each  fleet  withdrew  to  its  moorings.  The  sea  was 
like  oil,  and  that  ominous  calm  reigned  from  which 
better  sailors  than  the  Greeks  would  have  foretold 
storm.  At  midnight  it  thundered  and  lightened  on 
Mount  Pelion,  the  wind  rose,  and  the  wrecks  and  bodies 
■were  drifted  to  the  station  of  the  Persian  fleet,  and 
struck  the  crews  with  dismay.  But  it  fared  worse  with 
their  detached  division,  which  was  utterly  destroyed  on 
the  rocks  on  the  outer  coast  of  Euboea.  Thus  did  the 
good  wind  Boreas  still  seem  to  help  his  friends.  A  re¬ 
inforcement  of  fifty-three  fresh  Athenian  galleys  came 
up  at  daybreak,  having  escaped  the  storm  inside  the 
island.  The  ancient  war-ships,  even  the  great  “five- 
bankers”  of  the  Romans  and  Carthaginians,  could  stand 
no  more  weather  than  a  river-steamer;  while  their  great 
rounded  Dutch-built  merchant  ships  would  ride  out  a 
moderate  gale  fairly.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  second 
day  the  Greeks  attacked  again,  and  sank  some  Ciliciau 
vessels.  On  the  third  day  about  noon  the  Persians  be¬ 
gan  the  attack,  while  the  Greeks  kept  their  station  at 
Artemisium.  There  was  much  fouling  among  the  Per- 


144 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


y 

sin  ns  from  their  closely- packed  vessels,  but  they  fought 
well ,  and  neither  side  could  claim  much  advantage. 
The  Athenians  gained  most  distinction  among  the  al¬ 
lies;  and  of  the  Athenians  Cle-inias,  son  of  Alcibiades, 
and  father  of  him  of  that  name  who  afterwards  was  the 
representative  Athenian  of  the  new  school.  He  had 
manned  and  equipped  his  trireme  Tit  his  own  expense. 
The  Greeks  remained  masters  of  the  field — that  is, 
of  the  scene  of  action,  with  the  bodies  and  wrecks: 

I 

but  as  half  the  Athenian  fleet  had  been  more  or 
less  damaged,  they  decided  on  withdrawing  south¬ 
ward,  especially  as  they  now  heard  of  the  loss  of 
Thermopylae.  Before  he  went,  Themistocles  had  in¬ 
scriptions  graven  on  the  rocks  by  all  the  watering, 
places,  exhorting  the  Ionian  Greeks  now  in  the 
service  of  Persia  to  desert.  If  this  had  no  effect  on 
those  to  whom  they  vrnre  addressed,  it  would  at  any 
rate  make  them  objects  of  suspicion  to  the  Persians. 
Then  the  Greeks  sailed  away — the  Corinthians  first,  the 
Athenians,  as  became  them,  last. 

While  the  Persian  sailors  and  marines  were  wasting 
the  north  of  Euboea,  a  herald  came  from  Xerxes  order¬ 
ing  a  day’s  leave  ashore  to  be  given,  that  the  crews 
might  view  the  field  of  Thermopylae.  On  the  Greek 
side  were  four  thousand  bodies  in  a  heap,  which  the 
king  pretended  were  all  Spartans  or  Thespians  ;  on  his 
side  lay  about  a  thousand,  scattered  all  over  the  field. 
The  rest  of  the  Persians  had  been  carefully  buried 
beforehand;  but  the  trick  deceived  nobod}r. 

The  Persian  army  now'  advanced  and  ravaged  Phocis, 
and  on  the  farther  frontier  parted  into  two  divisions, 
the  larger  entering  the  friendly  territory  of  Boeotia,  and 
making  for  Athens — the  smaller  proceeding  towards 
Delphi.  Xerxes  was  well  instructed  as  to  the  Avealth 


HERODOTUS. 


145 


•of  Apollo's  temple,  and  must  have  known  by  heart  all 
the  costly  offering’s  that  Croesus  had  made.  The 
Delphians  in  dismay  consulted  their  oracle  :  the  god 
replied  that  “he  could  protect  his  own.”  Just  when 
the  enemy  reached  the  ascent  to  the  temple  a  thunder¬ 
storm  burst  forth,  and  great  rocks  came  rolling  down 
the  steep  of  Parnassus.  The  Persians  fled  and  the 
Delphians,  assisted  apparently  by  two  supernatural 
warriors,  emerged  from  their  hiding-places  and  slew 
the  hinderrnost.  The  priests  of  Apollo  were  doubtless 
adepts  in  the  machinery  of  the  stage.  * 


CHAPTER  XI. 

6ALAMIS. 

“  The  man  of  firm  and  righteous  will, 

No  rabble,  clamorous  for  the  wrong. 

No  tyrant’s  brow,  whose  frown  may  kill, 

Can  shake  the  strength  that  makes  him  strong: 

Not  winds,  that  chafe  the  sea  they  sway, 

Nor  Jove’s  right  hand,  with  lightning  red: 

Should  Nature’s  pillared  frame  give  way, 

That  wreck  would  strike  one  fearless  head.” 

— Conington’s  “Horace.” 

Such  is  the  portrait  of  Themistocles,  as  drawm  by 
Kaulbach  of  Munich,  in  his  great  cartoon  of  the  battle 
of  Salamis.  He  stands  at  ease  on  the  deck  of  his  galley, 
sacrificing  to  the  gods  while  the  battle  is  ending.  We 
feel  that  he  would  be  as  composed  and  dignified,  only 
somewhat  sadder,  if  the  ruin  were  coming  on  him 
instead  of  on  the  enemy.  The  very  self-seeking  of 


146 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


this  remarkable  man  in  the  midst  of  the  most  exciting 
circumstances  bears  testimony  to  the  admirable  balance 
of  his  nature.  He  somewhat  resembles  Marlborough, 
of  whom,  for  all  his  romantic  courage,  Macaulay  too 
severely  says,  that  in  his  youth  he  loved  lucre  more 
than  wine  or  women,  and  in  his  middle  age  he  loved 
lucre  more  than  power  or  glory.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  Themistocles  was  a  Greek,  and  the 
versatile  Ulysses  is  the  very  type  of  a  Greek  hero. 

It  was  not  in  the  Greek  character  to  vie  with  Darius 
in  his  right  nfyal  disdain  of  petty  advantage  and 
private  revenge.  The  Greeks  would  have  made  far 
better  “hucksters”  than  that  king  who  was  so  called 
by  his  nobles  because  he  was  a  good  financier.  And 
Themistocles  was  a  first-rate  example  of  the  middle- 
class  burgher,  as  “the  curled  Alcibiades”  was  of  the 
“gilded  youth”  of  a  cultivated  Greek  republic.  He 
was  Presence- of-mind  incarnate.  But  he  was  honest 
withal — with  the  honesty  of  a  good  Jew  with  whom 
one  might  safely  deposit  millions,  but  who  would  not 
fail  to  make  every  shilling  breed.  And  he  was  a 
patriot — one  who  would  die  for  his  country  at  any 
moment,  but  was  far  too  sensible  to  believe  in  her  or 
to  trust  her.  The  sequel  of  his  life  showed  that  he 
was  right.  Themistocles,  though  not  the  highest  type 
of  man,  is  perhaps  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  the 
Greek  on  record. 

The  Athenians  had  hoped  that  the  combined  Greek 
forces  would  make  a  stand  in  Boeotia,  but  in  this  they 
were  disappointed.  The  primary  object  of  the  Spartans  v 
was  to  take  care  of  themselves;  their  secondary  object, 
to  save  Greece  that  they  might  rule  it.  They  wished 
the  Athenians  out  of  their  way,  but  they  felt  that  if 


HERODOTUS. 


147 


the  fire  spread  to  them  it  would  be  coming  somewhat 
close  to  their  own  home.  Could  they  not  sacrifice 
Athens,  and  save  the  Athenians,  who  would  then  be 
their  obedient  servants  ?  So  they  withdrew  their  land- 
forces  behind  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  which  they  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  fortify;  while  the  combined  fleet  was  induced, 
by  the  entreaties  of  the  Athenians,  to  anchor  off  the 
island  of  Salamis,  to  which  most  of  the  latter  proceeded 
to  transfer  for  safety  their  families  and  goods. 

The  Greeks  had  received  reinforcements  which  made 
their  fleet  larger  now  than  when  it  had  fought  at 
Artemisium.  The  Athenians  now  furnished  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  eighty  of  the  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  galleys.  The  Persian  army  entered  Athens  only 
to  find  an  empty  cityr — none  had  remained  in  it  but 
some  of  the  very  poorest,  or  a  few  obstinate  heads  who 
saw  in  the  palisade  of  the  citadel  the  “wooden  walls”  of 
the  oracle,  and  strengthened  it  with  planks  accordingly. 
The  Persians  encamped  on  the  Areopagus  (the  Mars’ 
Hill  of  St.  Paul),  and  shot  lighted  arrows  at  the  barri¬ 
cade,  which  was  soon  in  flames.  But  their  storming- 
parties  were  foiled  by  a  gallant  defense,  until  a  few 
soldiers  scaled  a  place  where  no  watch  was  kept,  and 
were  followed  by  others,  who  put  the  weak  garrison  to 
the  sword.  The  temple  of  the  goddess  was  plundered 
and  burnt,  and  Xerxes  sent  a  messenger  home  to  Susa 
to  announce  that  his  vengeance  w7as  complete. 

The  sacrifice  of  Athens  was  unavoidable,  yet  it 
greatly  affected  the  allies,  who  thought  of  withdrawing 
their  fleet  to  the  isthmus.  But  the  Athenians  felt  that 
this  step  would  almost  certainly  lead  to  its  breaking  up. 
There  was  a  long  war  of  words  between  Themistocles, 
Eurybiades,  and  Adcimantus.  This  last  was  insolent 
to  the  Athenian.  “You  have  no  country  now,”  said 


148 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


he,  “and  therefore  no  vote.”  Themistocles  replied, 
that  with  two  hundred  well-manned  ships  the  Athenians 
would  find  a  country  wherever  they  chose  to  land. 
At  last  the  threat  that  the  Athenians  would  all  emigrate 
to  Italy,  and  give  up  the  war,  prevailed.  And  prepara¬ 
tions  were  made  for  battle. 

The  time  was  naturally  one  which  abounded  with 
portents  and  prodigies,  which  were  generally  interpreted 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  enemy.  It  was  the  time  of 
the  year  of  the  great  procession  in  honor  of  Ceres  and 
Bacchus  from  Eleusis  to  Athens.  It  could  not  be  held 
now  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy,  but  a  chant  was 
heard  in  the  air,  as  from  no  mortal  choir,  and  a  column 
of  dust  was  seen  to  rise  and  spread  into  a  heavy  cloud 
which  overshadowed  the  Persian  armament.  Some  en¬ 
thusiasts  averred  that  they  saw  the  heroes  Ajax,  Teucer, 
and  Achilles,  battling  for  their  homesteads  in  Salamis 
and  iEgina.  Their  images,  at  all  events,  were  brought 
out  to  battle  for  good  luck.  The  Spanish  Carlists, 
when  they  appointed  the  image  of  Nostra  Senora  dc 
los  Dolores  generalissimo  of  their  forces,  went  a  step 
further;  and  this  was  in  our  remembrance. 

The  Persian  fleet  had  already  lost  six  hundred  and 
fifty  ships,  but  Herodotus  says  that  it  had  been  rein¬ 
forced  to  the  original  number  by  the  contingents  from 
the  islands  and  some  maritime  states — an  assertion  which 
seems  hardly  probable.  At  Plialerum,  the  harbor  of 
Athens,  a  council  of  war  was  held.  The  best  head  in 
the  fleet  of  Xerxes  was  a  woman’s — Artemisia,  queen  of 
Halicarnassus.  This  Amazon  of  the  sea  seemed  almost 
a  match  for  that  goddess  of  war  and  wisdom  whom 
the  Athenians  worshiped.  She  always  appears  a  spe¬ 
cial  favorite  with  her  townsman  Herodotus,  who  never¬ 
theless  is  said  to  have  found  the  tyranny  of  her  family 


HERODOTUS. 


149 


unendurable.  She  advised  Xerxes  to  bide  his  time,  and 
let  the  Greek  confederacy  fall  to  pieces  from  internal 
dissensions.  But  the  party  of  action  prevailed;  the 
land-forces  marched  on  the  isthmus,  where  Cleombro- 
tus,  brother  of  Leonidas,  now  commanded,  and  the  fleet 
weighed  anchor. 

The  Spartans  and  other  Greeks  within  the  Peninsula 
had  meanwhile  been  working  night  and  day,  throwing 
up  a  wall  of  defense  across  the  isthmus.  Their  panic 
communicated  itself  to  the  fleet,  so  that  Themistocles 
was  obliged  at  last  to  resort  to  a  desperate  stratagem. 
He  sent  to  the  Persian  commanders  secretly,  to  tell 
them  that  he  was  a  well-wisher  of  the  king’s,  and  that 
the  Greeks  meditated  flight.  The  Persians  believed  it, 
and  made  such  arrangements  of  their  forces,  undercover 
of  the  night,  as  would  effectually  prevent  the  escape  of 
their  enemies.  The  Greek  council  of  captains  was  still 
in  tierce  debate  when  the  Athenian  Aristides  arrived 
from  iEgina,  where  he  was  undergoing  ostracism  (he 
was  said  to  have  been  banished  because  the  people  were 
tired  of  hearing  him  called  “  the  Just”),  and  said  that  he 
had  just  succeeded  in  getting  through  the  enemy,  who 
had  completely  surrounded  the  Greeks.  All  now  made 
up  their  minds  for  the  inevitable  fight,  and  the  com¬ 
manders  addressed  the  crews — Themistocles,  with  the 
most  powerful  eloquence.  But  the  enemy  attacked  so 
fiercely  that  the  Greeks  backed  water,  till  Ameinias  the 
Athenian,  whose  blood  was  hotter  than  that  of  the  rest,1 
darted  forward  and  engaged  an  enemy’s  ship.  The  two 
became  entangled,  and  others  coming  up  to  their  aid, 
the  conflict  became  general.  The  Persians  themselves 
fought  better  than  at  Artemisium,  although  they  be¬ 
came  involved  in  the  same  inextricable  confusion,  while 
the  Greeks  never  allowed  their  line  to  be  broken.  The 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


very  circumstance  that  the  Persians  were  under  the  eye 
of  their  king,  who  overlooked  the  battle  from  a  neigh¬ 
boring  promontory,  told  in  one  respect  against  them, 
since  it  caused  those  in  the  rear  to  press  to  the  front,  and 
thus  get  involved  with  their  own  retreating  ships-;  so 
that  a  tangled  ball  of  hulls,  oars,  and  rigging  was 
formed,  which  the  freely-moving  Greeks  could  strike 
at  and  tear  to  pieces  at  their  leisure. 

The  vanquished  showed  in  some  instances  great  gal¬ 
lantry.  The  liege  lady  of  Herodotus,  Queen  Arte-, 
misia,  distinguished  herself  as  much  in  the  fight  as  in  the 
council,  but  in  a  way  of  questionable  morality.  Being 
hard  pressed  by.  an  Athenian  galley,  she  turned  on  one 
belonging  to  her  own  allies,  and  sank  it.  The  Athenian 
thought  he  must  have  made  a  mistake,  and  sheered  off, 
while  the  unsuspecting  Xerxes  admired  the  good  ser¬ 
vice  his  fair  ally  seemed  to  be  doing,  “My  men,”  said 
he,  “fight  like  women,  and  my  Avomen  like  men.” 
Such  cool  effrontery  would  have  been  unintelligible  to 
a  Persian.  There  was  a  petty  king  on  board  the  gal¬ 
ley  which  she  had  sunk;  but  drowned  men  tell  no  tales. 

A  brother  of  the  king,  Ariabignes,  the  admiral,  per¬ 
ished,  and  a  vast  number  of  noble  Persians.  The  Greeks 
whose  ships  were  sunk  mostly  saved  themselves  by 
swimming,  while  the  Persians  lost  more  drowned  than 
killed  in  action.  The  fugitives  tried  to  reach  Plialerum, 
but  there  were  HUginetans  outside  who  swooped  on 
them  like  falcons.  The  stage-coward  of  the  battles  of 
Artemisium  and  Salamis  is  the  unfortunate  Adeimantus, 
who  is  accused  of  attempted  flight.  Why  was  Herodo¬ 
tus,  usually  so  impartial,  so  spiteful  against  him  and 
the  Corinthians?  He  may  have  relied  on  Athenian  in¬ 
formation,  or  perhaps  some  general  impression  of  Greek 
half-heartedness  must  have  come  from  Halicarnassian 


HERODOTUS. 


151 


or  Ionian  sources.  iEschylus,  in  bis  magnificent  trag¬ 
edy  of  “The  Persians,”  beside  which  the  prose  of  He¬ 
rodotus  is  tame,  speaks  of  nothing  but  patriotic  zeal,  sing¬ 
ing  of  pseans,  and  joyous  alacrity.  The  hero  of  Water¬ 
loo  is  said  to  have  modestly  observed  to  some  ladies  who 
complimented  him  on  a  description  of  the  battle.  “I 
ought  to  know  all  about  it,  for  I  wTas  there  myself.” 
So  zEschylus  ought  to  be  our  best  authority  for  the  bat¬ 
tle  of  Salamis,  as  he  was  present  himself,  probably  in 
the  ship  of  his  brother  Ameinias.  According  to  him, 
it  was  the  Persians  who  were  caught  in  a  trap  by  The- 
mistocles:  thinking  the  Greeks  were  in  retreat  tlie}^  had 
made  their  arrangements  for  chase  and  not  for  action, 
which  rendered  their  discomfiture  more  easy;  since 
not  only  did  those  who  came  up  break  their  fighting- 
order,  but,  as  at  Artemisium,  they  had  detached  a  con¬ 
siderable  squadron  to  block  the  entrance  to  the  strait. 
The  poet  describes  the  chase  as  lasting  till  midnight,  in 
the  open  sea,  the  Greeks  destroying  the  helpless  enemy 
“like  fishermen  harpooning  in  a  shoal  of  tunny-fish.” 
All  the  shore  of  Attica  was  strewn  with  wrecks. 

“  Slow  sinks,  more  lovely  ere  his  race  be  run, 

Behind  Morea’s  hills  the  setting  sun ; 

Not  as  in  northern  climes,  obscurely  bright, 

But  one  unclouded  blaze  of  living  light! 

O’er  the  hushed  deep  the  yellow  beam  he  throws, 

Gilds  the  green  wave,  that  trembles  as  it  glows. 

On  old  iEgina’s  rock,  and  Hydra’s  isle, 

The  god  of  gladness  sheds  his  parting  smile; 

O’er  his  own  regions  lingering,  loves  to  shine, 

Though  there  his  altars  are  no  more  divine. 

Descending  fast,  the  mountain-shadows  kiss 
Thy  glorious  gulf,  unconquered  Salamis!”  * 


*  Byron— “  The  Corsair.” 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


But  never  did  the  sun  of  Greece  set  on  a  scene  so 
memorable,  and  so  beautiful  in  one  sense,  in  the  midst 
of  its  terror,  as  on  that  autumn  evening  in  the  year  4S0 
B.c.  There  was  yet  more  to  be  done,  but  Greece  and 
civilization  were  safe. 

The  destruction  of  the  grand  fleet  necessitated  the  re¬ 
treat  of  the  heterogeneous  multitude  which  called  itself 
the  grand  army,  for  it  depended  on  the  fleet  for  most  of 
its  supplies.  But  it  was  hoped  that  a  picked  .force 
might  still  succeed,  and  Xerxes  left  behind  300,000 
troops  under  the  command  of  Mardonius,  who  went 
into  winter  quarters  in  Thessaly,  when  he  started  home¬ 
wards  with  all  possible  speed.  This  flight  may  have 
had  state  reasons  for  it,  like  that  of  Napoleon  from 
Russia,  for  the  outlying  provinces  were  always  ready 
for  insurrection  ;  but,  considering  his  character,  the 
simple  interpretation  of  his  conduct  appears  the  most 
probable  that  he  was  thoroughly  cowed.  Themistocles 
wished  to  follow  up  the  victory  by  hunting  the  fugitives 
from  island  to  island,  and  then  destroying  the  bridge  of 
boats  over  the  Hellespont.  When  he  was  overruled  by 
Eurybiades  he  gave  out  that  he  had  changed  his  mind, 
and  sent  a  faithful  slave  to  find  Xerxes,  and  tell  him 
that,  out  of  personal  good  will  to  his  majesty,  Themis¬ 
tocles  had  prevented  the  Greeks  from  destroying  the 
bridge. 

i  An  unusually  early  winter,  as  in  the  Russian  cam¬ 
paign  of  1812,  added  to  the  sufferings  of  the  retreat. 
According  to  the  tragedian  iEscliylus  great  numbers 
perished  in  attempting  to  cross  the  frozen  Strymon, 
thus  forestalling  the  Beresiua  disaster.  The  Hellespont 
bridge  had  been  broken  up,  not  by  the  Greeks  but  by  a 
storm ;  but  there  was  no  difficulty  in  ferrying  across 
the  miserable  remnant  in  boats.  At  Abydos  they  came 


0 


HERODOTUS. 


153 


on  supplies,  and  many  who  had  survived  starvation  on 
grass  and  tree-bark  died  of  surfeit.  One  version  of  the 
account  makes  Xerxes  leave  his  army  on  the  Strymon, 
and  take  ship  hi  nisei  t  for  Asia.  A  storm  coming  on, 
the  ship  was  in  such  danger  that  the  pilot  declared  that 
there  was  no  chance  of  safety  unless  some  of  those  on 
board  would  sacrifice  themselves  to  lighten  it,  and  ap¬ 
pealed  to  the  loyalty  of  the  Persians,  who  accordingly 
leaped  overboard.  It  is  added  that,  on  coming  safely  to 
land,  the  king  presented  the  pilot  with  a  golden  crown 
for  saving  his  owu  life,  and  then  had  him  beheaded  for 
causing  the  death  of  so  many  of  his  gallant  servants. 
The  latter  part  looks  like  the  repetition  of  an  anecdote 
of  Cambyses;  and,  indeed,  Herodotus  scarcely  believes 
the  story,  as  he  observes  that  the  Persians  might  have 
been  sent  below,  and  the  Phoenician  crew  sacrificed.  It 
did  not  seem  to  strike  him  that  sailors  are  of  more  use 
in  a  storm  than  the  best  soldiers,  and  the  self-devoting 
loyalty  of  the  Persians  to  their  monarch’s  person  is  well 
known. 

The  Greeks  passed  an  anxious  winter,  for  Mardonius 
remained  in  Thessaly,  making  his  preparations  for  ac¬ 
tion  in  the  spring.  Their  allied  fleet,  a  hundred  and 
ten  strong,  was  persuaded  to  come  as  far  as  Delos  by 
an  embassy  from  Asia  (one  of  whom  was  an  Herodotus, 
possibly  a  relative  of  our  author),  who  represented  that 
the  Greek  colonies  there  were  ripe  for  revolt.  They 
were,  however,  deterred  for  the  present  from  proceed¬ 
ing  farther;  possibly  because  a  Lacedaemonian,  natu¬ 
rally  a  landsman,  was  first  in  command.  Mardonius  in 
the  mean  time  spent  the  winter  in  consulting  oracles, 
the  answers  of  which  do  not  seem  to  have  been  partic¬ 
ularly  encouraging,  as  he  afterwards  resorted  to  the 
more  statesmanlike  measure  of  endeavoring  to  detach 


154 


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% 

tlic  Athenians  from  the  Greek  alliance.  For  this  mis¬ 
sion  he  selected  Alexander,  the  son  of  Amyntas,  prince 
of  Macedon.  The  Spartans,  hearing  of  it,  sent  ambas¬ 
sadors  on  tlicir  part  to  beseech  them  not  to  desert  the 
Cause  of  Greece.  The  Athenians,  with  something  of  a 
lofty  contempt,  bade  them  have  no  fear,  and  told  Alex¬ 
ander  that  they  would  carry  on  the  war  with  the  de¬ 
stroyers  of  their  city  and  temples  “so  long  as  the  sun 
held  its  course  in  heaven,”  and  warned  him  as  he 
valued  his  safety  never  again  to  bring  them  a  like  pro¬ 
posal.  They  were  terribly  in  earnest;  for  when  one 
Lycidas,  a  fellow-townsman,  counseled  submission  on 
another  occasion,  they  stoned  him  to  death. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

PLAT^EA  AND  MYCALE. 

“  A  day  of  onsets  of  despair! 

Dashed  on  every  rocky  square, 

Their  surging  charges  foamed  themselves  away. 

Last  the  Prussian  trumpet  blew; 

Through  the  long-tormented  air 
Heaven  flashed  a  sudden  jubilant  ray, 

And  down  we  swept,  and  charged,  and  overthrew.” 

— Tennyson:  “  Ode  on  the  Death  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington.” 

The  concluding  act  of  the  great  historical  drama 
opens  with  the  spring  of  b.c.  479.  Mardonius  has 
come  south  from  Thessaly,  and  is  gleaning  in  Athens 
whatever  the  spoiler,  Xerxes,  had  left.  The  Athenians 
are  again  in  their  island- asylum  of  Salamis.  The  Spar- 


HERODOTUS. 


155 


tans  are  marching  on  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  under 
the  command  of  Pausanias,  who  had  succeeded  his. 
father  Cleombrotus  in  the  regency  and  the  guardianship 
of  the  young  son  of  Leonidas,  who  did  not  live  to 
reign.  After  a  demonstration  towards  Megara,  where 
he  hoped  to  cut  off  the  advanced  guard  of  the  allies, 
Mardonius  proceeded  into  the  Theban  territory,  where 
he  constructed  a  vast  fortified  camp  on  the  bank  of  the 
river  Asopus.  A  general  advance  was  now  made  by 
the  Peloponnesians  from  the  isthmus  to  Eleusis,  where 
they  were  joined  by  the  Athenian  contingent  from  Sal- 
amis.  When  they  had  ascertained  where  the  Persians 
were  they  set  themselves  in  array  along  the  highlands 
of  Citlimron.  As  they  seemed  indisposed  to  come  down 
into  the  plain,  Mardonius  sent  his  cavalry  to  feel  their 
position,  under  the  command  of  Masistius. 

This  Murat  of  the  Persian  army  was  a  handsome 
giant,  who  rode  a  white  Nisaean  charger,  whose  accouter¬ 
ments,  as  well  as  those  of  his  rider,  glittered  with  gold. 
So  rode  Charles  of  Burgundy  at  Granson  or  at  Morat. 
In  the  present  day  such  costume  is  scarcely  to  be  seen 
further  west  than  India,  and  some  tall  Rajah,  full 
dressed  for  the  Governor- General’s  durbar,  would  give 
a  good  idea  of  how  Masistius  looked  at  the  head  of  his 
cuirassiers.  These  galloped  up  to  the  Greek  infantry 
in  troops,  hurling  their  javelins,  and  calling  them  “wo¬ 
men”  because  they  did  not  come  on.  The  Megarians 
were  in  the  most  exposed  place.  Being  hard  pressed 
they  sent  to  Pausanias  for  succor.  When  he  called 
for  volunteers  the  Athenians  promptly  offered,  and 
three  hundred  picked  men,  supported  by  archers,  moved 
up.  The  charges  continued  without  cessation,  Masis¬ 
tius  leading  with  the  utmost  gallantry,  and  presenting 
a  conspicuous  mark  to  the  bowmen.  At  last  an  arrow 


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pierced  the  side  of  liis  charger.  He  reared  back  from  the 
agony  of  the  wound,  and  threw  his  rider,  who  now  lay 
at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies,  stunned  by  his  fall,  and, 
like  the  knights  of  the  middle  ages,  helpless  from  the 
weight  of  his  panoply.  His  vest  of  Tju'ian  crimson 
was  pierced  witli  spear-points,  but  still  he  lived, 
for  under  it  he  wore  a  shirt  of  golden  mail.  At 
last  a  hand  more  dexterous  than  the  rest  pierced  his 
brain  through  one  of  the  eye  holes  of  his  visor,  for  he 
was  too  proud  to  ask  for  quarter.  Among  his  own 
followers,  as  they  charged  and  wheeled  about,  no  one 
knew  that  he  was  dead,  and  they  might  even  have  rid¬ 
den  over  the  body  of  their  unconscious  commander,  as 
the  Prussian  cavalry  did  over  Blucher  when  he  lay 
under  his  dead  horse  at  Ligny.  But  when  they  retired 
he  was  immediately  missed,  for  there  was  no  one  to  give 
the  word  of  command.  All  that  they  could  now  do  for 
him  was  to  recover  his  body,  and  with  this  object  the 
squadrons  united  and  made  a  combined  onset.  To  meet 
this  the  Athenians  called  up  other  Greek  troops  to  their 
assistance.  While-  they  were  coming,  a  tierce  struggle 
took  place  for  the  body,  which  the  Athenians  were 
obliged  to  leave  till  their  reinforcements  joined  them. 
But,  as  it  could  not  be  easily  removed  by  cavalry,  it 
ultimately  remained  in  possession  of  the  Greeks.  Many 
Persian  knights  shared  the  fate  of  their  commander,  so 
that  the  rest  of  the  troopers  were  obliged  to  ride  back 
to  Mardonius  with  the  news  of  their  misfortune.  The 
death  of  Masistius  was  considered  such  a  blow  that  it 
was  bewailed  by  the  whole  army,  corps  after  corps 
taking  up  the  dole  of  their  Adonis,  till  it  resounded 
through  all  Boeotia,  and  horses  and  men  were  ordered 
to  be  shorn  and  shaken  as  a  sign  of  public  mourning; 
for  Masistius,  next  to  Mardonius,  was  considered  the 


HERODOTUS. 


157 


greatest  man  in  the  army.  To  the  Greeks  his  fall  was 
a  matter  of  equal  rejoicing,  and  the  handsome  corpse 
was  carried  along  the  lines  to  raise  the  spirits  of  the 
soldiers.  Their  fear  of  cavalry  was  now  wearing  off, 
and  a  general  forward  movement  was  made  towards  the 
plain  of  Platsea,  where  water  was  more  abundant.  They 
took  up  a  new  position  near  the  Gargaphian  Fountain 
(the  modern  Yergantiani).  Here  a  hot  debate  arose  be¬ 
tween  the  Tegeans  and  Athenians,  each  demajiding  the 
honor  of  occupying  the  left  wing  (the  Spartans  always 
claimed  the  right),  which  was  decided,  chiefly  on  mytho¬ 
logical  grounds,  in  favor  of  the  Athenians.  The  army 
was  thus  marshaled:  on  the  right  were  five  thousand 
heavy-armed  Spartans,  with  thirty-five  thousand  light¬ 
armed  Helots,  and  of  other  Laconians  five  thousand; 
then  the  Tegeans.  then  the  other  Greek  contingents,  till 
on  the  extreme  left  six  hundred  Platseaus  stood  by  the 
side  of  eight  thousand  Athenians  under  Aristides.  The 
decision  of  Greek  battles  mainly  rested  on  the  heavy¬ 
armed  infantry.  Each  man  of  these  was  generally 
attended  by  his  military  servant,  and  looked  upon  him¬ 
self  as  an  officer  and  a  gentleman.  The  Athenian  con¬ 
tingent  probably  represented  all  who  were  not  engaged 
on  board  the  fleet.  The  remnant  of  the  Thespians 
— whose  city  as  well  as  Platsea  had  been  sacked — 
eighteen  hundred  in  number,  were  also  there,  but  now 
too  much  impoverished  to  serve  as  heavy-armed.  The 
sum  total  of  the  army  was  one  hundred  and  ten  thou¬ 
sand  men,  being  less  than  one  to  three  to  the  army  of 
the  king. 

Mardonius  honored  the  Spartans  by  confronting  them 
with  his  best  troops,  the  Persians;  he  posted  his  Modes, 
Bactriaus,  Indians,  and  Sacse  opposite  the  other  Greeks, 
and  threatened  the  Athenians  with  his  Greek  and  Mace- 


158 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


donian  allies.  Besides  his  three  hundred  thousand,  he 
had  a  number  of  small  contingents,  such  as  marines 
from  the  fleet,  and  perhaps  fifty  thousand  Greek  aux¬ 
iliaries.  It  was  not  the  custom  for  any  army  to  ^engage 
until  the  omens  had  been  pronounced  favorable;  and 
the  soothsayers  on  both  sides  constantly  reported  that 
they  were  favorable  for  defense,  but  not  for  attack. 
After  the  two  armies  had  thus  watched  each  other  for 
eight  days,  Mardonius  was  advised  to  occupy  the  passes 
of  Cithmron,  as  the  Greeks  were  constantly  being  re¬ 
inforced  from  that  quarter,  and  accordingly  dispatched 
cavalry  to  a  pass  leading  to  Platasa,  called  “Three 
Heads”  by  the  Boeotians,  and  “  Oakheads”  by  the  Athe¬ 
nians  (the  Greek  words  sounding  much  the  same).  This 
.  foray  resulted  in  destroying  a  military  train  of  five 
hundred  sumpter  animals,  which  was  making  its  way 
to  the  Greek  army.  The  next  two  days  were  passed  in 
demonstrations  of  cavalry  up  to  the  Asopus,  which  ran 
between  the  armies,  the  Theban  horse  showing  great 
alacrity  in  annoying  their  Hellenic  brethren,  but  leav¬ 
ing  the  serious  fighting  to  the  Persians.  On  the  eleventh 
day  Mardonius,  tired  of  inaction,  held  a  council  of  war, 
the  result  of  which  was  that  he  ordered  an  attack  on 
the  next  day,  in  spite  of  the  still  unfavorable  auspices. 

In  the  dead  of  night,  as  the  armies  lay  in  position, 
the  Athenian  sentries  were  accosted  by  a  solitary  horse¬ 
man  who  asked  to  speak  to  their  commanders.  When 
they  came  to  the  front,  he  told  them  that  the  omens 
had  till  now  restrained  Mardonius,  but  that  yesterday 
he  had  “bid  the  omens  farewell,”  and  intended  to 
fight  on  the  morrow.  He  added,  that  he  hoped  that 
his  present  service  would  not  be  forgotten;  he  was  of 
Greek  origin,  and  a  secret  friend  of  the  Greeks: 
his  name  was  Alexander,  the  son  of  Amyntas  of 


HERODOTUS. 


159 


Macedonia.  As  soon  as  the  message  had  been  reported 
to  Pausanias,  he,  with  a  scarcely  Spartan  spirit, 
wished  the  Athenians  to  change  places  with  him,  as, 
from  their  experience  at  Marathon,  they  knew  the 
Persian  manner  of  lighting  better.  And  this  maneu¬ 
ver,  dangerous  as  it  was  to  attempt  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy,  would  have  been  executed,  had  not  Mardonius 
discovered  it,  and  made  a  corresponding  disposition 
of  his  own  army.  He  then  sent  a  herald  to  reproach 
the  Spartans,  and  challenge  them  to  light  man  for 
man,  with  or  without  the  rest  of  the  combatants,  as 
they  pleased.  As  no  answer  was  given  his  cavalry 
were  launched  en  masse  against  the  Greek  army.  The 
mounted  archers  caused  them  great  annoyance,  and 
destroyed  the  Gargapliian  well,  from  which  their  water 
supply  was  drawn.  The  supplies  from  the  rear  having 
been  cut  off,  the  Greeks  determined  on  a  westward 
movement  towards  the  city  of  Plata3a,  where  they  would 
be  within  reach  of  water.  Half  the  army  were  to 
carry  ‘out  this  movement  in  the  night,  while  the  other 
half  were  to  fall  back  on  Cithseron,  to  protect  their 
line  of  communication  with  their  base  behind  the 
isthmus.  The  first  division  had  suffered  so  much  dur¬ 
ing  the  day  that  in  their  joy  at  the  respite  the}"  retired 
too  far,  and  never  halted  till  they  reached  the  pre¬ 
cincts  of  a  temple  of  Juno,  close  to  Platasa  itself. 
Pausanias  himself  was  following,  but  he  was  kept 
back  by  the  insubordination  of  a  sturdy  colonel  named 
Amompharetus,  who  objected  to  any  strategic  move¬ 
ments  which  looked  like  running  away.  At  length 
he  was  left  to  follow"  or  not  as  he  pleased,  while  the 
rest  of  the  Spartans  defiled  along  the  safe  and  hilly 
ground,  the  Athenians  striking  across  the  exposed 
•  plain.  Mardonius  had  now  some  reason  to  despise 


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THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY 


his  enemy,  and  he  ordered  all  his  cavalry  to  charge, 
and  the  infantry  to  advance  at  quick  march,  crossing 
the  Asopus.  The  Athenians  were  hidden  from  him  by 
a  series  of  knolls,  but  lie  pressed  hard  on  the  steps  of 
the  Lacedaemonians  and  Tegeans.  Fortune  sometimes 
favor's  the  timid  as  well  as  the  brave.  Seeing  Mar¬ 
donius  apparently  pursuing  the  enemy,  the  rest  of  his 
army  at  once  broke  their  ranks  and  followed  in  dis¬ 
order,  each  man  eager  to  be  in  at  the  death  of  the 
quarry  which  his  commander  was  hunting  down. 
Pausanius  had  already  sent  a  mounted  orderly  to 
the  Athenians  to  beg  that  they  would  come  to  his 
assistance,  or  at  least  send  their  archers,  as  he  was 
sorely  vexed  by  the  cavalry.  They  could  not  comply, 
as  they  wanted  all  their  strength  to  repulse  a  general 
attack  which  was  just  then  being  made  on  them  by  the 
king’s  Greeks.  Pausanias  halted  his  line  ;  but  still  the 
sacrifices  were  unpropitious.  From  behind  the  Persian 
breastwork  of  shields  came  a  rain  of  arrows,  and  the 
breastwork  itself  seemed  impregnable.  The  Lacedae-. 
monians  and  Tegeans  were  falling  fast.  At  last 
Pausanias  espied  at  no  great  distance  the  temple  of 
Juno,  and  offered  up  a  prayer  to  the  goddess.  The 
omens  at  once  changed  as  by  magic.  The  Tegeans 
dashed  at  the  enemy’s  fence  of  shields.  The  Spartans 
followed,  and  the  battle  was  won.  The  Persians  fought 
like  bull-dogs,  singly  or  in  knots,  though  their  long 
dress,  says  the  chronicler,  was  terribly  in  the  way. 
They  wrenched  away  or  snapped  asunder  the  long  Greek 
lances,  and  made  play  with  their  hangers.  Mardonius, 
conspicuous  on  a  white  horse,  like  Ney  at  Waterloo, 
was  the  “  bravest  of  the  brave.”  But  at  last  a  cry  rose 
that  Mardonius  was  down,  and  at  that  cry  the  Persians 
wavered,  and  fled  in  wild  disorder  to  the  great  stockade  * 


HERODOTUS. 


161 


which  had  been  built  to  protect  their  camp.  But 
Artabazus,  who  had  now  come  up,  had  kept  his  forty 
thousand  men  iu  hand  when  he  saw  the  scramble  of  the 
attack ;  and  when  he  saw  the  repulse,  he  made  no 
attempt  to  save  the  day,  but  faced  about  and  at  once 
began  an  orderly  retreat  on  the  Hellespont,  Some  of 
the  Greeks  who  had  joined  the  Persian  king  fought 
desperately  in  their  miserable  cause.  Three  hundred 
noble  Thebans  are  said  to  have  fallen  in  the  front  of 
the  battle.  This  may  have  been  the  “Sacred  Band” 
which  fought  under  Epaminondas  in  later  history,  and 
which  consisted  of  friends  sworn  to  live  and  die  to¬ 
gether.  These  Thebans  fought  indeed  “with  halters 
round  their  necks  for  after  the  victory  Pausanias  in¬ 
sisted  on  the  surrender  of  the  chiefs  of  the  late  move¬ 
ment,  and  executed  them  all.  When  the  Greeks  who 
had  made  the  mistake  of  retreating  too  far  turned  back 
in  disorder  to  get  their  share  of  the  glory  poetical 
justice  overtook  them  in  the  shape  of  a  charge  of  the 
Persian  and  Theban  cavalry,  which  stung  them  with 
the  energy  of  a  doomed  swarm  of  wasps.  They  lost 
six  hundred  men,  and  were  scattered  to  the  heights  of 
Cithseron.  All  was  not  yet  over.  A  new  battle  began 
at  the  Persian  camp,  which  vigorously  repelled  the  on¬ 
slaughts  of  the  Spartans  and  their  allies.  It  was  not 
till  the  Athenians  came  up  (who  understood"  wall¬ 
fighting,”  says  Herodotus)  that  the  day  could  be  spoken 
of  as  finally  decided.  They  managed  to  break  or  upset 
the  “abattis,”  and  the  Tegeans  again  led  the  forlorn 
hope  through  it  or  over  it.  Then  began  the  slaughter. 
Only  three  thousand  were  left  alive  of  the  whole  Persian 
army.  This  seems  incredible,  especially  in  connection 
with  the  small  number  of  the  allies  who  fell  in  the 
action,  as  given  by  Herodotus.  But  the  vanquished 


162 


TIIE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 

were  possibly  impounded  in  tlieir  fortified  camp,  like 
the  wretched  Mamelukes  whom  Mehemet  Ali  destroyed 
in  the  court  of  a  fortress. 

The  plunder  was  immense.  The  tent  of  Mardonius, 
wuth  all  the  royal  plate  which  the  king  had  left  him, 
his  manger  of  bronze,  gold  and  silver  in  all  shapes, 
splendidly  inlaid  arms,  vestments,  horses,  camels,  beau¬ 
tiful  women,  became  the  dangerous  prize  of  the  needy 
Peloponnesians,  who,  to  avert  Nemesis,  offered  a  tithe 
of  all  to  the  gods.  Pausanias  buried  with  due  honors 
the  body  of  the  brave  Mardonius,  though  he  was 
strongly  urged  by  an  iEginetan  of  high  rank  to  remem¬ 
ber  how  that  of  Leonidas  had  been  treated  by  Xerxes.. 
“Would  you  have  me  humble  my  country  in  the  dust, 
now  that  I  have  just  raised  her  ?”  was  the  Spartan’s 
answer.  And  he  bid  the  proposer  be  thankful  that  he 
answered  him  only  in  words. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  invidious  custom  in  all 
Greek  battles  to  assign  to  one  or  two  men  the  prize 
of  valor,  and  our  author  always  gives  their  names. 
The  bravest  of  all  was  adjudged  to  be  the  Spartan 
Aristodemus,  sole  survivor  of  the  glorious  three  hun¬ 
dred  of  Thermopylae.  He  could  not  bear  his  life, 
and  now  lost  it  purposel}7;  therefore  he  was  refused 
the  usual  honors.  Sophanes  was  proclaimed  the 
bravest  of  the  Athenians  :  he  was  in  fact  so  brave 
that  (perhaps  adopting  an  idea  from  his  experience 
afloat)  he  wore  an  anchor  and  chain,  by  which  he 
moored  himself  to  his  post  in  action.*  It  is  a  pity 
to  lose  our  faith  in  so  quaint  an  expedient;  but  there 
was  another  version  of  the  story,  says  our  honest  chron- 


*  So  the  wounded  at  the  battle  of  Clontarf,  in  Ireland,  are  said 
to  have  got  themselves  tied  to  stakes. 


HERODOTUS. 


163 

icier,  that  lie  bore  an  anchor  as  the  device  on  his 
shield.  Tiie  prudent  Artabazus  reached  Byzantium 
safely,  though  lie  was  roughly  handled  on  the  road  by 
the  Thracians  and  Macedonians,  the  latter  of  whom  had 
been  from  the  first  favorable  to  the  Greeks. 

This  “  crowning  mercy”  of  Platsea,  as  Cromwell  would 
have  called  it,  was  supplemented  by  a  brilliant  action 
which  took  place  on  the  same  day  at  Mycale,  on  the 
coast  of  Ionia. 

When  the  season  for  navigation  had  come  the  Greek 
fleet  under  Leotychides,  which  had  remained  at  Delos, 
pushed  across  to  Samos,  but  the  prey  they  had  expected 
to  find  there  had  flown.  The  Persian  fleet  had  placed 
itself  under  the  protection  of  a  land  force  of  sixty  thou¬ 
sand  men  under  Tigranes,  appointed  by  Xerxes  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Ionia,  and  was  drawn  up  on  shore  at  Mycale, 
protected  by  a  rampart  and  palisade.  The  Greeks  came 
provided  with  gangway  boards,  and  all  other  appliances 
for  naval  action.  But  the  Persians  were  morally  sea¬ 
sick,  therefore  Leotychides  disembarked  his  troops  at 
his  leisure.  A  mysterious  rumor  of  a  great  victory  in 
Bceotia,  ascribed  to  some  divine  messenger,  but  possibly 
brought  as  a  telegram  by  fire-signals,  put  the  Greeks  in 
heart.  It  was  afternoon,  and  the  field  of  Platsea  had 
been  fought  in  the  morning.  The  Athenians  were  al¬ 
ready  engaged,  when  the  Lacedaemonians  came  up, 
having  to  make  a  circuit  by  a  rugged  way  intersected 
with  ravines.  As  at  Platsea,  the  Persians  fought  well 
as  long  as  their  rampart  of  bucklers  stood  upright;  even 
when  it  gave  way  they  broke  up  into  clusters,  which 
fought  like  wild'boars  at  bay.  The  onset  of  the  Athe¬ 
nians  was  the  more  furious  that  they  feared  to  ha^e  their 
laurels  snatched  from  them  by  their  friends.  They 
drove  the  Persians  into  their  camp,  and,  more  fortunate 


164 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 


than  tlieir  brethren  at  Plat  sea,  entered  it  pell-mell  With 
the  flying  enemy.  The  barbarian  auxiliaries  fled  where 
they  could,  but  the  Persians  themselves  still  held  out 
desperately,  until  the  Lacedaemonians  came  up  and 
completed  the  defeat.  Tigranes  and  Mardontes  died 
as  became  Persian  officers,  fighting  gallantly  to  the  last. 
The  Milesians  in  the  Persian  service,  who  had  been 
posted  to  guard  the  passes  of  the  mountain,  turned  on 
the  fugitives  and  cut  them  up;  for  revolt  became  gen¬ 
eral  among  the  Ionian  Greeks  as  soon  as  the  battle  was 
over,  and  Samos,  Chios,  Lesbos,  and  other  islands 
joined  the  confederacy  for  reprisals  against  Persia. 

The  Greek  fleet  now  sailed  to  the  Hellespont,  where 
they  found  the  bridge  of  boats  destroyed.  ThenLeoty- 
chides  went  home  with  his  Spartans,  but  the  Athenians 
stayed  and  besieged  Sestos,  which  held  out  till  the 
autumn,  when  it  was  taken  by  famine.  There  had  been 
a  serious  debate  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  re¬ 
move  the  Ionian  colonists  altogether,  and  settle  them 
in  Greece,  than  leave  them  to  the  future  tender  mercies 
of  Persia.  But  the  question  was  settled  by  the  Athe¬ 
nians  taking  their  Asiatic  colonies  into  close  league  and 
alliance. 

In  those  two  memorable  years,  which  end  the  narra¬ 
tive  of  Herodotus,  Europe  had  established  its  prepon¬ 
derance  over  Asia  forever.  The  last  tableau  of  his 
great  epic  drama  is  almost  lost  in  its  blaze  of  glory, 
and  it  is  time  that  the  curtain  should  fall.  It  is  true 
that  Herodotus  hardly  recognizes  this,  and  tries  to 
amuse  his  readers  for  some  time  longer  with  the  not 
very  edifying  court-scandal  of  Susa.  Xerxes  had  in¬ 
finite  trouble  with  the  ladies  of  his  court.  The  fierce 
and  jealous  sultana  Amestris,  who  treated  her  rival 
with  such  fiendish  cruelty,  may  be  the  Vasliti  of  the 


iimoDorm 


163 

Book  of  Esther*  as  Ahasuerus  is  supposed  to  be  the 
Scriptural  form  of  her  husband’s  name.  Nemesis  was 
fully  satisfied  when  Xerxes  himself  fell  a  viclim  to  a 
palace  intrigue;  but  this  is  not  mentioned  by  Herodo¬ 
tus,  nor  that  a  statue  of  that  dread  Power  was  placed 
on  the  spot  where  he  had  been  a  spectator  of  the  de¬ 
struction  of  his  fleet. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

It  has  thus  been  attempted  to  give,  in  a  succinct 
form,  the  general  drift  and  character  of  the  great  work 
of  Herodotus.  In  the  original,  his  liquid  and  pellucid 
Ionian  dialect  constitutes  one  of  the  greatest  charms  of 
his  style.  In  simple  perspicuity  he  forms  a  remarkable 
contrast  to  the  terse  and  gnarled  Thucydides,  who  pro¬ 
pounds  so  many  puzzles  to  the  classical  scholar.  But 
no  ancient  author  is  so  profitable  to  read  in  a  good 
translation.  A  good  translation  is  like  a  good  photo¬ 
graph,  giving  distinctive  traits,  and  light  and  shade, 
but  no  life  or  color.  Our  attempt  is  a  colored  sketch  _ 
on  a  small  scale,  and  not  a  photograph,  of  a  great  book. 

Herodotus  may  be  considered,  according  to  the  stan¬ 
dard  of  his  time,  as  a  decidedly  veracious  historian. 
And  his  veracity  is  of  a  kind  that  wears  well.  It  is 
impossible  to  refuse  to  credit  him  with  general  impar¬ 
tiality;  and  if  he  erred  at  all,  the  modern  reader  will 
readily  pardon  his  excessive  sympathy  with  the  Athe- 


166 


THE  ELZEVIR  LIBRARY. 

nians.  Yet  lie  does  full  justice  to  the  gallantry,  generos¬ 
ity,  and  other  high  qualities  of  the  Persians.  He  was 
born,  we  must  remember,  a  Persian  subject — for  Hali¬ 
carnassus  did  not  recover  its  independence  until  he  had 
grown  up  to  manhood — and  he  could  speak  from  expe¬ 
rience  of  the  masters  of  Ionia,  that  their  rule  was,  oil 
the  whole,  just  and  equal.  His  own  town,  indeed,  had 
met  with  exceptional  kindness  from  her  liege  lords. 
Hence  he  has  none  of  the  usual  Greek  contempt  of  and 
antipathy  to  “barbarians,”  or  people  speaking  an  un¬ 
known  tongue,  which  is  a  prima  facie  reason  for  dislike 
with  the  vulgar  of  all  nations.  His  great  merit  is  that 
of  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  a  broad  catholicity  of  sen¬ 
timent  in  observing  and  estimating  character.  He  has 
the  strongest  sympathy  with  heroism  whenever  dis 
played,  an  exquisite  feeling  for  humorous  situations, 
and,  as  naturally  connected  with  humor,  intense  pathos 
when  the  subject  admits  of  it.  He  has  the  head  of  a 
sage,  the  heart  of  a  mother,  and  the  simple  apprehen¬ 
sion  of  a  child.  And  if  his  style  is  redundant  with  a 
sort  of  Biblical  reiteration,  it  is  always  clear  and  lumin¬ 
ous.  There  can  never  be  any  mistake  about  his  mean¬ 
ing,  as  long  as  no  corruption  has  crept  into  his  text, 
which,  when  it  happens,  is  the  fault  of  his  transcribers, 
and  not  his  own.  His  ethical  portraits  are  above  all  in¬ 
valuable,  and,  however  fabulous  the  circumstances  with 
which  they  are  connected,  must  have  been  true  to  the 
life,  from  their  evidently  undesigned  consistency.  The 
benignant  and  vain  Croesus,  the  ambitious  Cyrus,  the 
truculent  Cambyses,  the  chivalrous  yet  calculating 
Darius,  the  wild  Cleomenes,  the  wise  and  wary  The- 
mistocles,  the  frantic  Xerxes — the  very  type  of  the  in¬ 
fatuation  by  which  the  divine  vengeance  wrought — • 
these,  and  a  host  of  other  portraits  of  living  men,  can 


HERODOTUS. 


Wl 


only  be  compared  in  tlieir  verisimilitude  with  the  im¬ 
mortal  creations  of  Shakespeare. 

Not  a  few  pleasant  anecdotes — mythical,  ethical,  so¬ 
cial.  and  historical — as  well  as  nearly  all  the  minor 
affluents  of  the  main  stream  of  narrative,  have  been 
passed  over  or  barely  glanced  at,  for  want  of  space. 
Some  indelicacies  have  been  softened  in  stories  too  good 
to  omit,  but  this  process  leaves  their  spirit  unchanged. 
For  our  author  is  always  antique  and  always  natural. 
When  he  errs  against  refinement,  it  is  in  a  sort  of  in¬ 
fantine  naughtiness — not  with  the  perverse  intention  of 
a  modern  writer.  Indeed,  his  high  moral  principle 
cannot  fail  to  strike  even  a  careless  reader.  His  blood 
plainly  boils  at  injustice  or  cruelty ;  and  whatever 
superstition  he  may  have  inherited  with  his  religious 
creed,  he  has  an  intense  faith  in  an  overruling  Provi¬ 
dence,  which,  spite  of  some  anomalies  which  puzzle 
him,  as  they  have  done  the  wisest  in  all  ages,  does  on 
the  whole  ordain  that  “the  righteous  shall  be  recom¬ 
pensed  in  the  earth — much  more  the  wicked  and  the 
sinner.’ 


END. 


11  Hi  |  BOSTON 

COLLEGE 

3  9031  0'c 

8  67765  6 

